It makes me hungry.

Today Readers, we are going to talk about allergies again. This story is mainly for search purposes for other bunny owners. Plus, there is somewhat of an interesting twist. Amusing only to the medical field apparently.

Also somewhat amusing? There is little real data for allergies in rabbits. They test rabbits to see what people are allergic to, but they have no idea what rabbits are allergic to. But, I'm convinced now they do exist.

Here's the story.

Last week.. or maybe it was two weeks ago now, Paisleys' allergy problem flared up. Her dewlap swelled up, she got at large marble sized nodule in it again. She licked all her fur off, and was basically a licking and scratching nightmare. Pictures can be found in these previous blog posts.

The previous times this happened I was always suspicious that a cyst was causing the problem. Because I still didn't believe rabbits could get allergies. The vet was more convinced of allergies. Though admittedly, she'd never had a case in bunnies.

Anyway.. we thought we had narrowed down an allergen trigger, and were keeping her away from those things.

We were wrong. Obviously, or we wouldn't be revisiting this problem. Keeping all petroleum based products from her diet was not the cure. Though we still keep them from her.

So.. nothing like yogurt drops or Petromault. Bunny owners will understand the significance of these.

With no known trigger, the only thing to do it treat the symptoms. Thankfully so far she has been responding to injectable Benadryl. She now seems to be back to normal. Which seems to back up the case she does indeed have some odd allergy, instead of something that would be cured with antibioitcs.

This is the interesting part. The injectable Benadryl seems to be an appetite stimulant. Reproducible 100% of the time. This apparently is an unknown side affect.

About 15 minutes after a shot, she becomes ravenous and will eat a full days kibble and hay in a few hours. This is a bunny who often won't eat all the pellets given in a day.

Interestingly, Baby Benadryl does not cause this side affect. Thankfully. Paisley gained 3 ounces in two weeks. Which is quite a lot for your average rabbit.

Too early!

Um... isn't today September 25th? Oh yeah.. it is!

Someone must be a little excited, because I've never seen anyone put up Halloween decorations 6 weeks early.

I know Halloween is 5 weeks away, but this stuff has been up for a week already. Also a little weird. It's like 90 degrees here today.. so this stuff just seems super odd.

This is why America is so great.

Since Mr S. is home today waiting for Halo, we decided to go out and get some Subway Wraps for lunch. Hold on.. the story gets better.

We pull into the Subway parking lot and park right next to this Mercedes. I'm not a big Mercedes fan, but we both sort of liked the design of this one. Plus, it looked like it had a modification package that was kind of interesting. So we walked around the car admiring it for a minute. Then walked in to get our wraps.

Mr S. and I were debating how much a car like that might cost. Mr S. guessed about 100 grand.

There was an older woman waiting on us. She later told us she was 50. She was about halfway done making our wraps when she asked us if we liked her car. Mr S. and I looked at each other, then out to the parking lot at the Mercedes. I wasn't completely sure we were all talking about the same car - so we asked her if the Mercedes was hers. She confirmed it was. She'd been watching us admire it.

Both of us were instantaneously shocked. First of all, the car obviously had a high performance upgrade. Something more geared for a young male. And two - you've all been into a Subway right? You ever think anyone working there could afford to buy a 100,000 dollar car?

At any rate.. we were very curious. And she was perfectly willing to talk.I personally get a huge kick out people surprising me like that. So, I was willing to listen.

This is what she told us:

She had been working at Jack in the Box for 25 years, at 11 bucks an hour. Sometimes she and her husband worked 2 or 3 jobs. Yet had managed to raise 4 children. She still worked over at the Jack in the Box one day a week, and everyone thought she owned the store because the car she drove was so expensive. But she didn't. Over the years she did manage to acquire 3 subway chains. Mind you, this woman was obviously a first generation immigrant.

Since she was so open, I did ask her how much she paid for the car. She said she bought it used for around $70,000 with the upgrade package included. But still. New, the car would have cost 100 grand. Just as Mr S. predicted.

How great is it that someone working at fast food restaurants their whole lives can buy a car like that?

I'm not sure I believe the whole story. But it makes me feel good to think it could be possible.

No queens in Iran.

I know.. I know! Everyone is talking about the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speech. There isn't much left to debate.

Except this funny tidbit in regards to there being no homosexuals in Iran.

Um... didn't Iran give the band Queen an official seal of approval? Oh yeah.. it did. I blogged about it here. My link is horribly broken, so I've provided a new link to the BBC story from 2004.

Queen album brings rock to Iran

"Rock band Queen, fronted by gay icon Freddie Mercury, has become the first rock act to receive an official seal of approval in Iran. Western music is strictly censored in the Islamic republic, where homosexuality is considered a crime.

But an album of Queen's greatest hits was released in Iran on Monday.

Mercury, who died in 1991, was proud of his Iranian ancestry, and illegal bootleg albums and singles made Queen one of the most popular bands in Iran."

The rainy weekend.

Dear Readers, we finally got some rain this weekend. Which at first made me so excited. At first.

What spoiled the whole thing is that I had an add-on project. This is a project that is unplanned, but is spawned from another project. Normally these project are a higher priority because you can't complete the original project until the add-on project gets completed. These types of projects start me out in a surly mood, because they are always unexpected.

Normally I would have chosen to just be lazy and enjoy the rain. Play some Bioshock or take a nap. But you can see, that wasn't an option.

Apparently, it wasn't an option for any other person in my city either. They all wanted to be in exactly the same places I wanted to be. And all of those places were packed. It was like people said "oh shit, the sky is bleeding - I must go shopping or out to eat". The summer has been so oppressive after all.

And speaking of going out to eat. Most of the patrons had children. Tiny babies, and children under 5. I'm not being over sensitive here. The restaurant we went to literally had almost 15 newborns, and at least that many toddlers. I've seen less children at Chuck-E-Cheese. It was like the rain had caused baby spores to hatch like mold.

By the time we left we were relaxed by jet noise, and sirens. The whole thing kind of threw off my whole day though. All those babies crying creates static in my head for a little while.

Honestly, all the places we went were pretty annoying. It wasn't enough they were all twice as crowded as normal, but people all had turned to zombies.

You see, when it rains in California, people loose their minds. They are completely unable to function. They sort of stand around paralyzed with blank looks in their eyes. Sort of like lost children. It's sad really. Well, it might be sad if it didn't make me want to club them so they will get out of my way.

Anyway.. we did wind up completing the project - but dealing with the extra people added a huge chunk of time and frustration to everything.

I must make a mental note. Next time it rains, I must give into the urge to not do anything.

J&J can bite me.

One of the things that has been a pain in the ass about my surgery is - my incisions need to stay taped up for three months. Three months people.

This is so the LEDS around my nipples, and the USB port I had installed in my left breast will look pretty.

Anyway... my surgeon told me that tape she applied would hold for the three weeks. I didn't believe her then - and two weeks later every segment of tape has needed to be reapplied at least 4 times.

Mainly because of "compatibility" problems. None of the tapes Johnson and Johnson sell stick to each other, themselves, or me.

So, if you apply a set of overlapping tape, the tape that touches other tape will not stick, and you are basically screwed. Even with consumer grade surgical glue. I honestly don't know who this shit holds on. Maybe people who don't move, or don't shower?

I'm ready to just use some gaffers tape and be done with the whole thing.

I mean, Mr S. has had to re-tape so often, he has come up with a new elective surgery. Nipples surgically altered to look like hearts, moons or clovers.

Well, some of that I just made up. Which has made me reconsider letting him perform surgery on me. But it does make an interesting visual. Patent pending, patent pending, patent pending!

In news of why I had this surgery in the first place, I must make an admission. Before I had the reduction I'd been seeing random chiropractors my whole adult life. The last 5 years though, I was going 6 days a week.

Now I'm going maybe 2 times I week. I'm not sure my back will ever be perfect, but for me its a big deal to just gotten more than 50% relief.

So when I went to an appointment a couple of days ago, I told my chiropractor I was almost starting to miss him. After all, you become friendly with people when you see them that often.

This is what he said to me. "We will get you through this period and you'll be back on schedule". Insinuating that after I was healed from my surgery I would resume my old schedule of 6 days a week.

It was at that moment I realised my chiropractor had no fucking clue as to why I had surgery, and he was trying to refuse my breakup.

I was kid country before kid country was cool.

People! Today I want to talk about my two new most anticipated reality shows.

Kid Nation and The Baby Borrowers. They aren't high on my watch list because they sound exciting to watch. In fact, I predict they get pulled before the series even ends. Mostly they are top on my list for the "shut the fuck up" factor.

When I started seeing ads for Kid Nation, we plugged it into Tivo. I actully wasn't that interested in it. I'm sort of out of that demo. We plugged it in mostly because sometimes you never know what will be watchable with reality TV.

So, we try out an episode or two of almost any new series. Kid Nation had a "meh - what the hell" rating from us.

Now, since so many people have come out to complain about it - I really want to watch it. For like two episodes. I'm just totally fascinated by the bitching.

One of the major complaints is lack of adult supervision for the kids.

Okay.. this is the thing. Am I the only one here who was a latch key kid? Come to think of it.. I haven't even heard that term in a long time. Does latch key kid syndrome even exist anymore?

All the kids I grew up around had parents who worked. We were all left at home between the time we got home from school, and the time before a parent got home from work. In the middle of a big city. Not an abandoned town. We all learned by the age of 10 to not let strangers in and not drink bleach.

Additionally, does babysitting not exist anymore either? The kids in the show apparently range from 8-15 years old. When I was growing up - if you were a 15 year old girl. Babysitting is how you made money. Unless you lied about your age to work at a computer company like I did. But that's another story.

Again, in the way back machine of my childhood, a 15 year old girl was capable of taking care of even tiny babies. Why all of a sudden is a 15 year old the equivalent of a child?

Which brings me to The Baby Borrowers.

People.. chances are almost all of you were descended from teenage mothers. It might not have been your mom (like me), it might have been your great grandmother. Guess what? All of you survived!

Only this generation has shown so few teenage mothers. Frankly, when I was growing up - teenage mothers were still quite common. They barely killed any children.

I'm more alarmed a generation who refuses to grow up, then some kids with reasonable supervision in an isolated town in the middle of the desert. Just say'in.

It's all about the Rapture.

Readers! Its going to be a dark, dark place in the Snarkolepsy household next week.

Halo 3 is shipping. Which should be totally awesome. But it isn't. You see -I'm totally addicted to Bioshock. The best game ever! Now I have to compete against Mr S's beloved Halo. Which should be interesting. Normally Mr S. and I are not competing for console time.

This time - we will be, and I'm going to have to muscle him out. I think I can take him.

Surely the best course of action is to lob a few grenades and take out his Halo dude. Right?

I mean.. look how fantastic this game looks!



Plus, I'm totally addicting to these little hacking games.


Courtesy of Games.gearlive.com.

If they made this part of the game into a cellphone game, I might just loose my mind. I've turned into a gambler on crack.

I know this because if you aren't able to complete the puzzle - you loose health. And I just don't care.. I'll keep trying to solve these puzzles. Damn the consequences! Since, normally I'm a very conservative gambler.. I know I've got a problem, and Mr S. better watch out. Its ahwn!

P.S. PS3 sucks. Viva la XBOX!

Who steals shit like that?

A couple of days ago I found myself in the supermarket - again. I'm telling you.. I hate those places. But I always get interesting stories from them.

Anyway.. I'm only getting a few things, and I'm looking around for one of those hand-baskets. There aren't any of them. Anywhere. Normally I would sigh, roll my eyes, express irritation. Say fuck-it, and gather my few items and move on. But I'm still feeling particularly tolerant of people right now.

I decide to ask one of the checkers where they were storing them. Sometimes stores decide they want to place them so customers can't find one.

This time though, the checker said they didn't have any. To which I reply "what?!".

She told me people were stealing them, and offered to get me a cart. Normally I would decline and would have gotten my own damn cart. But, I thought it was nice that she offered, and I was still a bit perplexed on why people would steal such a stupid item. So, while I was waiting for her, I decided that I was curious enough to press the checker for more information.

She told me their store had been targeted for shoplifting. She thought people were filling up the hand-baskets with groceries to make it look like they'd bought them. Then were walking right out with everything. The store had just bought 30 baskets last week, and they were already all stolen.

Which didn't make a lot of sense to me. I've never actually seen those hand-baskets outside of the store. If you have few enough items to use one, you just walk out with a bag or two of groceries.

Plus - way to tell the customers you don't have any security cameras! Dumb-ass. You'd think the thieves would be easy to catch with such an obvious item. Not like you can stuff one of those hand-baskets into your pants.

Anyway.. I found it funny.

If I were a thief I think it would suck to have to get rid of all those baskets. I mean.. do you know how much space a stack of 30 might take up? I imagine a garage somewhere filled with them.

Everything must have LEDs.

This is such a simple technology, it's hardly worth talking about. But I totally love these things, so I'm going to tell you about them.

We finally found some outside lights for the house that looked somewhat modern. Of course, that means they only do exactly the job they were made to do. Illumination. Being the greedy little bitch I am.. I just couldn't be satisfied.

Like - it might be nice if you could get a light with motion detection that doesn't look fuhidious. So - you know, in that hour or two before you remember to turn the light on, people can see when they walk up to the door at night.

The other choice was leaving the light on 24/7, but since our house is already stomping on the electricity grid, I really try to conserve where I can. Not because I care about the earth, but because I care about my pocketbook.

Thankfully, Smarthome has these nice timers to control your lights. You put them right inside the existing switch-boxes like this:





And they magically turn lights on and off. No more using your fingers like a sucker. Now I want Mr S. to install them all over the house.

This is why technology made to make you lazy never works. You just have to keep installing more of it.

Finally turning a corner.

Yes Readers, I had to drop off the map for a while. There is only so much " I'm freaking out" you can write about.

"I'm freaking out.. I'm freaking out". See... you're bored already.

You can't imagine how un-sarcastic you become in the middle of a meltdown. Which makes the whole meltdown totally not funny. How enjoyable is that? I learned a lot about myself this month, and I'm going to share it with you.

1. I no longer think I can perform surgery on myself. Which bums me out. My biggest delusion of grandeur is that I think I can fix anything. Yes, yes.. there have been innumerable times that life has kicked me in the ass and shown that to not be the case. But if I listened to that crap, it wouldn't be a delusion of grandeur.

Now would it?

Since I sort of feel comfortable with my delusions - I hope its just a temporary thing.

Before this month, I was totally convinced that I could stitch myself up if I needed to. I'm not sure I would - but I really liked thinking I could if I had to. Now I'm all pussified.

Not to mention, I figured it was only a matter of time before I will have to stitch up Mr S.

He loves to see if he can slice something open. I'm placing odds on it being an X-acto accident from him having to break down shipping boxes that devour our house every week. Only a matter of time people. Only a matter of time.

As a matter of a fact, I'm so sure its going to happen I've gotten him to agree that I initially don't have to give him any sympathy so I can give him that "I told you so" look.

Now I'm not even sure I'll be able to stich him up. How lame is that?

Anyway.. I'm getting off track.

2. Neurotic people should not have surgery. Apparently, being neurotic makes you one step away from being a hypochondriac. This was totally unexpected, as I'm not your classic hypochondriac. That's not to say I never had the passing thought that the occasional migraine wasn't a brain tumor - I have. That is mostly Arnold Schwarzeneggers' fault. And its funny thing to say. " It's ah tu'more". See?

Since I really don't like doctors, it keeps a nice control on any real advancement of hypochondria. Once I figure out I'm not dying, I comfortably settle back into my aforementioned delusion of grandeur.

Having a ginoumous blood clot however turned me into the biggest freak you can imagine. And it wasn't like it went away in a couple of days. It is finally settling down after two weeks. Thankfully, the Internet told me this kind of thing is pretty normal. And it gave me a big dose of "shut the fuck up with your blood clot". Things could have been so much worse.

3. I was a big fat liar when I said I would be happy if I just didn't look mauled. Before surgery - that was a completely true statement. But judging from my complete angst every time something "didn't look right". Apparently, I cared a whole lot more than I thought I did.

There was a number 4. But I think I'm over the whole thing now, and maybe I didn't learn as much about myself as I thought. Other than the obvious. I'm way more neurotic than I thought I was.

At least you got an update. Now I can get back to talking about other stuff.

Dark.

It's been a busy weekend, and I have stuff to complain about. But I'm tired. So, I'm going to give you these shots I just took.

For the past several days the sun has been crazy red due to the ash in the air. I can't figure out how to capture it properly, so I tweaked my f-stops, and this is what I got. I did not use a red filter. The sun is really that red, even if they sky isn't.

Someday I will learn how to be a proper photographer.



As I was taking these shots, I noticed the soft top on the Solstice looked really dirty. Mr. S just washed it yesterday morning. So it seemed odd. When I went to examine why - I realized out it was ash raining from the sky.



The weird thing is.. we are hours from all the fires. But if you stood there long enough, you'd have ash on your shirt, and you could vaguely see it falling from the sky.

Oh yeah.. things are returning to normal.

I haven't slept in two days. Which made it the perfect time to go to the supermarket.

I have never hated women so much in my life. Those oblivious cart wielding bitches. That and their unattended/ running around 20 children. All of them with their arms flailing. I thought people were maxing out at 2 children per female now. It was like an f-ing playground in there. And, oh yeah! I'm a super fast walker. Do you know how hard it is to get away from women and their hoards of children?

Stores are a place that make me nervous these days. Mostly I'm ready to club people to death like baby seals - with any available strength I have left.

Normally, my personal space is about the area where my elbows would be if I had my hands on my hips. If I don't know you, and you aren't invited - you don't need to be any closer. Right now, my personal space is about a 4 foot circle around me. Which is a pretty hard goal in any shopping experience. I get that. But it's the fucking store. Not a packed stadium.

On the bright side.. I get to take a real shower tonight. Like - my whole body. It isn't like I haven't been showering, its just been a ginormous pain in the ass to shower having to keep a large area of my body dry. It will be so amazing to not have a 15 minute shower take 40 minutes.

Brother can you spare some air?

Oh my goodness readers.

I just got back from traveling around the Silicon Valley. You would not believe how horrible the air conditions are from all the fires. I took some pictures from my outing.. but those mostly look like a hazy day to anyone not in the area.

BUT! Since I blogged about the local fire yesterday, I figured taking another shot from the deck would show how different things look in just one day. These were taken today around 2:00 in the afternoon.

I even heard the San Fransisco airport is reporting flight delays due to the smoke. I'll try to find a news link.

This is from the same angle as picture #2 from my last blog entry. Notice the blue house?




This one is the same angle as picture #3 from my last blog entry.



Isn't that crazy?

Cal Fire Rocks.

Okay... so, I overdid it yesterday. Now I'm going to have to go back in "quit fucking around mode".

Apparently, I fuck around too much. With the projects, outings, cooking delicious chili, and trying to be a photog, my body wasn't so happy about that. It decided to give me a heaping helping of swell the fuck up. Just to prove who's boss.

But, let me leave you with this.

On the way back from Fry's - Mr S. and I saw smoke from what looked like a tiny grass fire. Not that unusual this time of year. Normally by the time you chase the fire down, Cal Fire has gotten it down to embers. So we didn't think much about it. But, when we got back to the house we could still see the smoke from the deck.

This is what it looked like around 3:00 yesterday.



Periodically I would go check on its progress. Instead of it getting smaller, it was getting much bigger. The smoke was really starting to be pronounced. And you could clearly see a smoke plume, rather than wispy smoke on the mountain.



The fire was just chewing up the mountain. Within the space of 5 minutes, you could see a little smoke mushroom begin, and then basically explode into a mushroom cloud. I couldn't believe how fast it was traveling.



Then, right at sunset. Calfire squashed it.

Those guys are amazing. Honestly. It amazes me how good they are at their jobs, and how quickly they can get something so menacing to settle down. I totally respect those guys.

The weekend update.

The last two days have been a little crazy. I'm trying to get things back to normal. So, I have a bunch of stuff to talk about.

Mr S., and I wound up doing a project today. Well.. mostly Mr S.

Normally I would have helped him - but I was busy fucking with this preying mantis.



I'm sure he is a product of all those preying mantis sacks they sell at the hardware store.

The whole time I've lived in California, I've never seen one in the wild. But, today, while coming back from one of our trips, I found him on our front window screen. This guy is probably the last of his species, which is why he is hanging out on my monitor right now.

Once, Mr S. and I tried to hatch one of those mantis sacks, and realised much like the Panda bear - mantis's should just go extinct. They really are the pussies of the insect world. Most of the time they can't even molt so they wind up dieing trying to shed their skin.

Anyway.

Today's project involved turning off the electricity. Which caused an old issue to pop back up. Mr S.'s graphics board problem.

It finally pushed him over the edge enough to want to fix it. All of a sudden we found ourselves at Fry's Electronics. Normally I might have thought it was too early to do an electronics store trip. But I definitely was getting locked in syndrome.

Once we got close enough to the parking lot, I became nervous. It looked busy. When we got into the parking lot however, we realised it was holy fuck busy. I don't think I've seen this place that busy even on Christmas. We didn't even think we'd find a parking place.

So we began to map out a plan for Mr S. to go in - and for me to circle the place. At the last minute we found a spot.

Once parked, I prepared myself to deal with a bunch of people. When we got in the door though, I was in panic mode. These people are normally clueless, but today, everyone was buying huge crap. HDTV's, computers - stuff like that. I'm only out of surgery 10 days, so I go into full linebacker stance. Forearms over my chest. Elbows way out. Mr S. is pulling up the rear trying to make sure no one bumps me from behind. It was crazy!

Happily we got out of the store in remarkable time.

All rest and no play, makes Snarkolepsy go Crazy.

Oh my goodness readers.

I almost can't take it anymore. I haven't driven in 9 days. I don't have any sarcastic thoughts. No one is driving me nuts. What am I becoming? I'm scared.

2 weeks ago I talked myself into thinking that by tomorrow I would be able to spend a short amount of time at any of the events going on this long holiday weekend. But then it hit. The ring of fire. You know.. the kind of heat that on a normal day makes you second guess any activity.

I'm not going to complain about it, because everyone in the country has had their turn in the ring of fire this summer. But, it was like mother natures hand swooping down to say "don't you fucking try it". Because you know, no matter how I felt, I would have made Mr S. take me some place. Only to get to the parking lot and figure out it wasn't such a good idea. You bet I would have at least tried though.

Maybe tomorrow I'll feel slightly more irrational about the heat and leaving the house. After all.... my boobs don't control me. Right?

Simple things Amuse Me.

I'm sure there is some easy explanation as to why this happened. But it still looks super cool.

Fox News Alert: Princess Diana still dead!

I had no strong opinions about Princess Diana when she was alive, but I have grown to loathe Loathe LOATHE the cult of Princess Diana that has sprung up around her since her death. Hey Morons -- there is NO SUCH THING as a "People's Princess"! The terms are utterly incompatible. To be a "Princess" is to set yourself up as being better than the "People". That's what royalty is all about -- being better than the common folk. You can't be both.

If/when Paris Hilton dies in a car crash, I give it about one week before people start calling her "The People's Heiress".

I don't know why - but I found this funny.

While we were laying in bed just now, Mr S and I had the following conversation.

Me - Do we still have ice creams on a stick?

Mr S. - I picked some up while I was at the store.

After smiling.

Me - I was wondering if you had the foresight to pick some up.

Mr S. - Yes, I had the forehead to pick some up.

After searching my memory banks to see if I had said forehead instead of foresight.

Me - I said foresight, not forehead.

Mr S. - Yeah, but my forehead is where I keep my mystical third eye which gives me foresight. And, in my butt I have my 4th eye which gives me hindsight.

Because you are too polite to ask.

Dear readers.... you know I'm going to be off this boob thing soon. Blissfully obsessing about some other topic. But, you have to understand, I've been stuck at home for almost 7 days. What am I going to blog about? Oprah?

Well, I did catch myself watching The View for about 3 minutes the other day. I've been home so long I think I may like people again. Who would have known!

Anyway.

So, I haven't really gotten excited about the boobs yet. Perhaps it is because I didn't do it for cosmetic reasons. But also - they don't really feel like my boobs.

They are way tight, and more than a little post adolescent. Textbook in fact.

I have textbook boobs.

I didn't really expect that, honestly. I didn't ask for, or even know they could make reduced boobs this tight. I'm pretty sure the only thing I asked for was not to be mauled, and that I wanted the doctor to be super careful that my nips weren't broken. Rnip is still trying to figure out if its broken or not.

My moms cancer mastectomy reared its ugly head all over the place before surgery. So the only thing I wanted was relief from back pain, and not to look like my mom did after surgery.

I know.. irrational. Two totally different operations. Sometimes you can't choose the things that leave a lasting impact in your head.

So, while I'm hardly going to complain. It's just going to take some adjusting to.

In 20 years I'm going to laugh at myself for even saying anything. But for now..the boobs are a little weird.

When bunnies hate robots.

Alright, so my color balance is off - and its not the greatest photo. You are just going to have to sue me until I can roll around getting better shots. This was taken the day before surgery.

Lets just say that Saffron and the Roboquad are not friends. She was mostly trying to eat it.

Saying hello.

I just wanted to thank all my readers for checking in and making such nice comments. You guys are really, really nice. Which makes me wonder how you wound up hanging out at my blog.

The initial plan was for Mr S. to regale you with funny stories. Well, things aren't working out that way so much. You must be sad for him that he hasn't even gotten to watch very much crappy TV. Except for those Hero's episodes he's seen a hundred times. Yes, he's a serial viewer. Once I've seen something I don't need to watch it again. But I digress.

Even thought I haven't taken nearly as much pain medication as we thought I would. Which is the good thing. But I'm being needy in ways I never would have expected.

The thing about these surgeries is that you lose a lot of blood. And, oh yeah - when I medical professional tells you nonchalantly there is going to be some "seepage", I think most people figure it is just going to be some spotting.

Especially when you have a drain tube, you figure the tube is going to handle all that(sweeping hand gesture). There were a few times when I was almost sure I was bleeding to death. I was seeping into my bandages as much as was going into the tubes.

Freaked... my.. shit.. out. Which also makes Mr. S. a complete saint. He handled all my bandage changes without even a funny face. I'm having him do my next surgery.

Mr S. has been catering to the needs that come with blood loss.

Example: Baby I'm hot, no I'm cold. No hot! And cooking protein rich foods, and fetching stuff. And keeping my boob ice packs filled. I got these great boob ice packs from surgery. I wish I would have known about these things before.

So, while I'm mostly just hanging out.. I am okay enough to start playing Bioshock! It is getting great reviews and for good reason. Though I have to keep from jumping. And it does make my heart race a bit. Hey - I can't be a complete invalid!

Anyway.. thanks again kind blog readers. I hope to comment on your blogs soon, because ya'all are so entertaining.

Post Surgery Update

Surgery was 5 hours, not 4 like they predicted, but everything went fine w/o complications. Thenthere was 3 hours in the recovery ward. We didn't get out of the hospital til around 4:30pm, andback at the house around 5:30pm.

But given all that's occurred today, she's in surprisingly good spirits. (or as she put it: "I'mjust amazed at how not writhing in pain I am.")

New Roombas

iRobot has announced their next generation Roomba. This time, it appears to be a real upgrade, rather than just changing the look of the plastic shell, which is how I feel about the last few versions. (In fact, we've found that the cheaper Roomba "Dirt Dawg" does a better job, and is quieter, than the Discovery model on our carpets.)

There's a nice video comparing the old Roomba vs new Roomba at Engadget, here

I'm sure we'll purchase one of the new, upgraded models, as soon as they're released. We'll post our experiences.

Surgery Day

Today is the big day.

We had to be at the hospital at 6:15am today. My tentative schedule was:

• 1 hour 15 minutes for getting up, shower, morning routine, feed bunnies, etc.
• 1 hour to get to the hospital (The hospital is about 40 minutes away undernormal traffic conditions, but I allocated an hour for the trip, b/c you can never tell with Bay Area morning traffic)

So that meant we had to be up by 4am. (Ugh!) Neither one of are morning people.At least I could have coffee.

The morning routine took a lot less time than expected, so we got on the road about 15 minutes early. And except for a 5 minute traffic snafu at a major interchange, traffic was pretty light, so we arrived at the hospital a full half hour early.

There wasn't any point to going in early, so we bucketed the seats all the way back, and took a 20 minute psuedo-nap (just resting, never actually going to sleep). There's a lot things we don't like about our Chrysler 300C, but I've gotta say that the seats are pretty damn comfortable. They bucket all the way to flat, Plus seat-heat! I love seat-heat.

The hospital parking lot has Valet Parking?!? WTF? You'd think this was a fancy-shmancy hospital, except that the building where we check-in for surgery is a trailer.

After the ubiquitous signing of misc papers that I'm sure we've signed 20 times already, we get to wait in the waiting area. After about 20 minutes, they take Mrs S. off to pre-op, leaving me alone in the waiting area. 15 min later, I'm lead into pre-op, thru a construction zone in the hospital, with lots of noisy power tools running.

Pre-op is a big room, subdivided into lots of litle rooms by curtains. We get a corner. The construction noise is still very loud, and very distracting. Waiting for surgery is anxious-making enough. The experience isn't enhanced by a soundtrack of power-tools.

So far, the experience is reminscent of going to the airport: Get up early, go for a long drive, check-in,wait, go to a different area, wait so more... And then, to make the airport-travel analogy complete, the curtain-room next to ours gets some tenants -- a family with two crying toddlers. Construction noise and crying children... joy.

Eventually the medical team comes in to prep one of the toddlers for surgery. The toddler switches from crying to sheer wailing. Like Spinal Tap, his volume knob goes all the way up to 11. While this is going on, I'm wrestling with my sense of decency. I feel like I should feel sympathy and compassion for the poor child, but all I can think of is that I wish the kid would shut up. I feel at a little better after eavesdropping convinces me that the kid isn't crying due to his medical condition, he's just cranky.

The little boy is finally taken to surgery, and the place is reasonably peaceful. (construction noises still abound)

Our surgeon is late. She says that somebody wrote the wrong time down on her schedule. This doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.

The aneasthetist gives Mrs S. some happy juice. It works almost immediately. Mrs S doesn't get all loopy like patients do on Dr 90210, she just got relaxed.

The cart her off to surgery around 8:10am. The surgery is supposed to take about 4 hours. So there's a lot more waiting in my future.

A (re)Introduction

Hi, I'm Mr. Snarkolepsy. I'm going to be 'guest' posting here for the next week while my wife recovers from her surgery. (I put "guest posting" in quotes b/c technically, I've always been part of this blog, I just never get around to posting anything.) I promised Mrs. S. that I'd keep her readers entertained, so I'm going to do my best.

Besides keeping you readers informed, my main job is to play Nurse Stimpy to Mrs S's Ren, taking the best care of her that I can as she recovers.

Surgery is tomorrow, and we're both stressed about it. But happily, we seem to be pretty good about not being totally stressed at the same time. I reassure her when she's scared, and she cheers me up when I'm all worried. (Marriage is nice that way)

Stay tuned for updates.

How WowWee makes me sad.

Are they kidding?

For a couple of months WowWee has said the Roboquad would be shipping this month. I was happy the bunnies and I might have something to play with while I was recouping. Especially while all doped up Vicodine.

Now they aren't shipping until the new year? Really? Not even shipping for Christmas? WTF?

I'm so bummed, I'm not even going to plug their website. But you must go see the video here.

Update: Allegedly Hammacher.com says they have some in stock and is shipping me one tomorrow. I don't know why Amazon.com doesn't have any. We've been on the waiting list for about two months.

Since shipping takes about 4 days to arrive - it's just going to have to be a cliff-hanger for you guys. As I doubt it will get here before I go into surgery.

Todays Ruining the earth Story.

Oh people! You must wonder why I'm constantly on tilt with companies. You do wonder that don't you?

This is why.



Some adult-tard actually sent me a vacuum filter in a big giant box. And look at all that fucking packing material! The item in front of the filter is some Revlon color stay lipstick. I put it there for scale.

Vacuum filter - not breakable.

Oh! And get this. The filter, which by the way could have been put in a padded envelope - weighed less than an oz. The packing material weighed 3.7 ounces. Four times what the item weighed.

And! Wait for it. They charged me 8 fucking bucks for shipping.

I know you are saying "hey dumb ass". You knew you were paying 8 bucks for shipping. Yes.. I .....did.

These days, you sort of get used to paying inflated prices for shipping. Usually I grit my teeth and just pay it. But come on! What are these people thinking? Other than "hey sucker - here's your filter".

If they would have stuck the filter in an envelope, it wouldn't have even caught my eye. But, when a big box shows up with a tiny little item inside, you know I'm going to bitch about it.

See my ruining the earth series here.

Fwd: Fw: Fw:

Why is it that old people can't get a single program on their computer working - yet they all can find the forward button?

Half the time they can't even send email. But when they do, you can bet its some letter they got from someone else. Filled with giant bouncing emoticons. And pictures of cherubic angels wistfully looking away in embarrassment for the sender.

I picture them saying " I know.. I cant believe they sent this picture either". They are always looking up at the sky, almost as if to roll their eyes.

You'd think it was a uniquely old woman thing to send these kinds of emails. But no.. old men send them too. Somehow old men turn into old women when it comes to forwarded emails.

This is the thing. Because they are old - you can't say shit to them about it. You have to say something like " oh - they mean well". And it spreads like a cancer. First one old person. Then the next.

I would rather see a trillion pieces of spam in my mailbox than one of these forwarded letters. At least spam isn't trying to steer my moral compass.