A Halloween LOL-lection

With Halloween upcoming, I thought I'd skim my LOLcat creations for appropriate entries. Feel free to re-use!

Back Home

My rotator cuff surgery went well on Wednesday, spent overnight in hospital, came home Thursday afternoon. Went to first PT session Friday; future PT will be about three times a week over the next two to three months.

Surgery site still fairly painful; trying to find the right balance between painkillers and having a semi-functional brain. Alternating Vicodan with extra-strength Tylenol about every three to four hours does a fairly good job on that.

I'll have about a two-inch scar on my shoulder when the incision is completely healed, which means I won't be able to get away with telling people about being attacked by a shark and beating the shark to death with an alligator. Damn.

Learning to cope one-handed: Some things easier than expected, some things not so easy. Some useful tips here.

Meanwhile, normal life refuses to sit back in a recliner with a bowl of chips and a big Pepsi and watch TV for the next three months. Got called last night, with the news that my mother -- who's been having her own, more serious, health problems the last few months -- took a sharp turn for the worse. Still waiting for test results to try and get a firm idea of what's going on, but it doesn't sound good, and the word "hospice" has been bandied about.

If you get an email that supposedly comes from me, but has a blank subject line . . .

. . . delete it without opening or reading.

My system seems to have been hacked, and fake emails from "me" have been going to people on my contacts list, containing links to penis-pills sites and worse. (Such as malware sites that will try and infect YOUR computer too.)

The good news is that the malware isn't smart enough to generate a fake subject line to go with the fake email.

So, Rule of Thumb in this instance is: If an email is lacking a subject line, delete it unread.

My standard security software (Trend Micro) didn't catch the bugger whenever it got into my system (*grump* *grump* *grumpety-poo*), so I'm curently running additional software to try to find and remove the culprit.

When the Revolution comes, and the triumphant mobs thrust me into my rightful position as Semi-Benevolent World Dictator, hackers will be executed in slow, cruel and appropriate ways.

UPDATE 10/23/10: The additional software I ran reported my system as clean, but it didn't report actually finding or removing anything. But nothing new in the line of fake emails has been reported to me, and nothing I've supposedly sent to myself (I got some of those too) has shown up in my email queue, for the last several days, so -- fingers crossed -- hopefully the problem has been eliminated. Still wish I knew where the problem originated, though.

Upcoming Surgery, and other news

I've noted in the last several posts my problems with my left shoulder following a bad fall on a wet kitchen floor at the end of August. The problems haven't been getting better, but worse: my range of motion with that arm is getting less, and the pains are getting stronger and sharper.

So I finally got an MRI on that shoulder last week, and it found what I'd been afraid it would find: a rotator cuff tear.

Most rotator cuff injuries and tears take place on the upper part of the rotator cuff. Mine's on the front of the rotator cuff, a more unusual situation, and harder to repair. (Also harder to diagnose, which is why I wasn't sent for an MRI earlier.) The surgeon has told me that while he prefers to do most rotator cuff surgeries arthroscopically, in my case he thinks it better to do an open surgery, laying the shoulder open to go in.

That will mean at least one night in the hospital. Surgery's curently scheduled for October 20th, next Wednesday.

The last time I was in the hospital for surgery was forty years ago, and I wasn't thrilled by the experience. But I'm a lot more anxious about the recovery period. I've been told that the left arm will need to be used not at all for the first month post-surgery. In the second month, it can be moved, but only in passive therapy where a therapist moves it around. Only in the third month will I be able to start doing some resistance exercises to build arm strength back up again.

I'll essentially have only one arm for about three months. (Oh, and the surgeon told me I shouldn't drive during recovery, either.)

When you're the primary caregiver for a disabled spouse, and have been helping her with... well, almost everything... for years, this is not good news. In fact, this situation -- ending up disabled or out-of-commission myself, and unable to care for Hilde -- has always been just about my biggest source-material for nightmares.

The good news is that we've had a charming young woman, Tabbi, living with us for several years, who acts as backup caregiver for Hilde when I'm at work or running errands. So she'll be able to take up a lot of the slack once I'm unable to do the heavy lifting I usually do. But that will put a big crimp in her own activities, which I'll feel guilty about (because I'm really good at that sort of neurotic navel-gazing).

On top of needing the surgery in the first place, the long recovery period will also mean I'll be off work for those three months. Hilde and I will still have her disability income and my Postal Service retirement check each month, but the lack of those security-job paychecks will mean we'll be running into red-ink territory each month I'm off. (I have some disability coverage through my insurance, but it won't kick in until after the first sixty days off work.) So I'll be having a financial ouchie as well as a physical one.

I've been trying to practice living one-handed before I go into surgery. One of the things I found is that it takes a long-g-g-g time to button a shirt one-handed. So I went down to the local Good Will store and picked up some snap-button shirts to use during recovery. I may also pick up some suspenders, to avoid having to try and thread a belt thru belt-loops, even if suspenders make a person look like a grumpy old guy. (Oh, wait! I am a Grumpy Old Guy....)

One piece of good news comes out of all this: Being off work for three months means I'll be able to grow my beard back! WOO-HOO!

- - - - -

In other news, last week the Phoenix area had a fairly spectacular storm, including heavy -- and large -- hail. "Golf-ball size" hailstones were reported widely, with some baseball-sized hail in a few areas. Lots of broken windows and damaged roofs across the city, though fortunately not in our neighborhood. (The hail here was heavy enough to set off the car alarm, though.)

I took a picture of one of the hailstones that fell here. This isn't the largest -- others were about half again as big -- but this one was in easy reach:

From Sling To Linger

The shoulder injury I reported in my last post, from four weeks ago, seems to have been more damaging and long-lasting than I first thought. Although the inital pain, over the entire shoulder area, faded off over a few days...

...I was still left with pain in several smaller areas, sometime sharp and intense, sometimes deep and lingering (like a bad bruise, except bruises get better). If pain could be seen, my shoulder would have a dull glowering reddish area most of the time, with occasional bright sparks and flashes.

Been to physical therapy, but if there's been any improvement, it's so marginal that I'm not sure it isn't wishful thinking.

My doctor's initial "You don't have a torn rotator cuff," has now become, "Well, maybe you have a small tear in your rotator cuff." I'm scheduled for an MRI next week, and a consult with an orthopedic specialist.

I'm hoping this doesn't end up with surgery, because I've been told the recovery from that would involve immobilizing my arm for weeks, and strongly restricting its use for months. At the present, I can still use the left arm at about two-thirds of its normal range of motion, inside a tolerable pain range. Push it too far in certain directions (I try very hard to avoid putting my hand behind my back) and I find myself suddenly making very interesting squeaking noises.

But the shoulder is a drag. It slows me down, it distracts me, and it makes me grumpy and irritable. (Okay, more grumpy, and more irritable, than usual.)

It's one of the reasons this is the first post in a month. (That's also because I've been trying to Get Things Done, with partial success. But I need that shoulder working right, dammit!)

Singapore Sling, Hold The Singapore

Took a fall onto the kitchen floor yesterday. Hard.

This came about as the result of a Rube Goldbergesque series of events. If THIS hadn't happened, then THAT wouldn't have happened, and then THE OTHER THING wouldn't have happened, and there wouldn't have been water all over the kitchen floor.

So, hello, Emergency Room. The shoulder wasn't broken, fortunately, but, hoo-hah, did it hurt! So I'm wearing an arm sling for awhile, and am living life with, mostly, only one arm. Tylenol, anti-inflammatories, Vicodan for bedtime all help with the pain.

Had to take Hilde to vote yesterday afternoon. Getting her wheelchair in and out of the car was interesting. I ended up putting my good arm under the folded-up seat-bottom and lifting it up like a one-tined forklift. The voting place had "Curbside Voting" available for the disabled, so Hilde was able to stay in the car while completing her ballot.

I'm hoping the sling can come off before I'm scheduled to go back to work Friday night.

Catching Up On Paperwork -- The Agony and the... More Agony

The photo up there isn't of my own desk, but it's more similar than I'm comfortable admitting.

But I finally managed to catch up on my tax returns, which is something of a relief. What wasn't a relief was finding that, rather than the refunds I've gotten used to over the years, I ended up owing an uncomfortable amount for 2008 and an eye-popping amount for 2009. Ouch. (And, contrary to what I thought after filing an amended return for 2007 earlier this year, the IRS told me I still owed money for that year as well. Double-ouch.)

Part of this was my own fault. After I got the security guard job in August '08, I kept neglecting to increase the withholding amount until earlier this year. Retirement income from the Postal Service also did a number on the numbers. Mea culpa, mea checkbook.

Besides upping the withholding on my guard pay, I'll be going to my credit union and setting things up to transfer a healthy percentage of my monthly retirement check into a savings account reserved for taxes.

We also owed big for 2009 because our income was up and our deductions were down. Having to see doctors less often: good news for your health, bad news for your tax refunds.

[venting]
I'm peeved about part of that extra "income" because it was no such thing. A few years back I co-signed a car loan for a close friend. She moved across the country in May of 2008, and stopped making payments on the truck. The truck was repossessed in October 2008.

-I- never heard about any of this, even though we were still in touch, until June 2009, eight months later, when I was contacted by a collection agency and told I was responsible for the balance left on the truck loan, close to $12,000.

For various reasons, the friend's own income wasn't seizable, and she could just tell collectors to go fuck themselves when they tried to collect the loan balance. But when she told them to go fuck themselves, she was saying "Go fuck yourself" to me as well, because she knew I'd have to pay if she didn't.

In return for quick payment, the collection agency settled for $8,400. Had to take a home equity loan to pay it. Not happy, me.

Not end of story. Earlier this year, I got a 1099-C, Cancellation of Debt, form from GMAC, the original loan company. The $3,500+ amount that had been waived when I paid the $8,400 was required to be reported as "income" on my tax return.

Oh, not happy, me. Especially when I plugged that information into Turbo Tax a few days ago and watched the "Amount Due" box climb by over six hundred dollars. For a truck I never owned, rarely drove, and should never have had to make any payment on at all. I think this qualifies as adding injury to injury.

(That friend -- let me rephrase that -- that former friend has still never said or written a single word directly to me or Hilde about any of this, even though she knows we know the truck was repossessed, even though she knows we had to pay the balance on her loan ourselves, even though she knows we had to go into debt to pay off her loan. Even just the words "I'm sorry" would have helped a lot with the anger I feel about this.)

Lessons learned?

Specific lesson: Don't co-sign a loan. For anyone. Ever.

General lesson: Don't trust your own trust in other people. (It's not the first time I've been burned by thinking other people would act the same way I would if the situation were reversed. I really should know better at my age.)
[/venting]

One of the reasons I got behind in getting the taxes filed is that I hate the process. Hate. Hate, hate, hate, hate. HATE. Have I mentioned I hate it?

Doing the actual tax returns is not the big problem. Turbo Tax actually does a pretty wonderful job of simplifying tax returns for most people, and even making them understandable for the most part. I want to have Intuit's children.

The hard part, the frustrating part, the part that has me clenching my teeth and bulging my eyes in bloodshot fury, is getting together the information to enter into those tax returns.

Especially because it's shouldn't BE a problem. Every year, throughout the year, I try to put info and papers I know will be needed for the next tax season into a separate folder or container. So it should just be a matter of cranking up Turbo Tax, opening that folder, and starting to enter that information.

And every year... EVERY YEAR... some of those papers and information, that I KNOW I received, that I KNOW I put into that folder... ISN'T THERE. Every damn year, I have to go on a scavenger hunt through every other piece of paper in the house, and usually find some of them in other places and files where they SHOULDN'T and WOULDN'T and COULDN'T be. And still others I have to contact the source for fresh copies, with associated delays.

(This is one area where Turbo Tax has failed miserably for me. Because TT is supposed to be able to download various information directly from one's various financial institutions. Except that every time I've tried using that "Import" button, it does not work. My batting average for downloading information via Turbo Tax is zero point nada nothing.)

But if I've moved into a part of my life where I seem more likely to owe taxes, rather than receive a refund, I really need to figure out some way to stay more organized. Not just with that "Taxes" folder, but with all the other papers & miscellanea that piles up so quickly; if I can change that annual "scavenger hunt" into just a regular "hunt", it would save a lot of time and frustration.

Because Why Should I Be The Only Person On The Internet To Not Write Something About It?

Over at The Rude Pundit, the quotable Mr. Pundit boils it down to it's bleached white bones:

"You despise this country if you think the Cordoba Initiative should move its planned community center. You have no understanding of the Constitution. If fact, you are in opposition to it. You have no respect for freedom of religion or speech. You are a coward who believes that the Constitution and the nation are too fucking weak to handle such freedoms. If you're not one of the crass politicians seeking to exploit the simpletons for your gain or a ratings-whore on Fox, you are a vile, hate-filled, unprincipled lump of shit who thinks that rights are only good when convenient for you, and you are too fucking lazy to fight for anything other than your prejudice and hatred."

It's Been A While Since I've Made A Cooking Post.

Perks of the Job: A Paycheck, Free Uniforms, and Live Sex Shows

Here's a link to a recent news item: "Couple Caught Having Sex In Scottsdale Parking Garage"

Yep, that's the place where I work as a security guard. No, I'm not the guard who caught them on camera, or the one who approached them in person. (This happened on an earlier shift.)

I am the guy, whoever, who was watching the monitors and caught another couple on a sidewalk bench a few nights later, with the very, very drunken young woman trying to get her hands inside the guy's pants. I dispatched our roving guards, who got there before Mister Johnson was dragged out of his tent, and who asked the couple to leave the property. Which they still had enough functioning brain cells left to do, unlike the couple in the news item linked above.

Ever since a large and popular bar opened up on our property a few months ago, the Incident Reports we've had to write have gotten more numerous, and a lot more interesting.

I've never been a big drinker, and never been all-out down-and-dirty drunk. Getting tipsy a few times when I was in my 20's was enough for me to recognize that drinking too much alcohol would make me start to turn into an asshole.

("Don't you mean more of an asshole, Bruce?")

And since the #1 Rule I try to follow is "Try to not be an asshole," I've always been careful not to drink much, if at all.

(That rule works pretty well, actually. I don't have to try to be a saint. I don't even have to try to be good. I just have to try to... not be an asshole.) (Yes, even that's a struggle sometimes.)

But it means I don't have much understanding, or sympathy, for people who seem to think getting drunk (or perhaps "dr-r-r-u-u-u-u-unk" would be a more apt version of the word) is its own end, and its own pleasure. Seeing the more intoxicated patrons of that bar just makes me want to do a facepalm and mutter "Oi vey. Mama Mia. Potrzebie!"

It Is A Proud And Lonely Thing...

...to be a fan of Zardoz.

In John Scalzi's latest film column, about well-regarded film directors who flopped at making a science-fiction film, the last of the list is reserved for what seems to be the obligatory hate for Zardoz.

*sigh* Yes, the costume designer should have been shot, or forced to wear that red loincloth/diaper in public. And some of the acting was done in an arch and mannered way. But still, the concepts were sound, the imagery was spectacular, the score introduced me to Beethoven's 7th Symphony, and I've watched the film multiple times with enjoyment.

Excuse me, I must go console myself with a peanut-butter-&-mustard sandwich.

News, And A New Profile Photo

The new photo is over there in the sidebar. It's been nearly two years since I had to shave off my long-time (33 years) beard for the security guard job, so I'm finally breaking down and putting my naked face online. I still want my beard back. *mrff*

The news is that the film option for my short story "Death And The Ugly Woman" was renewed. The option is for a projected anthology series, sort of like Masters of Horror , only adapting fantasy stories to the screen. Whether this will ever end up with D&TUW being produced . . . well, we'll see. But it means I get a check for another couple years option on the story. And considerable egoboo that they considered the story worth optioning again.

Dear Pedro,

"You DELETE real comments about the truth that is currently happening in America?"

No, Pedro, I delete deranged comment spam from some whacko who not only wants to use MY blog to present his raving views on fluoridation and demonic conspiracies, but who SERIALIZES his opus across four different posts here. None of which posts have any relation or connection to anything you write about.

I delete deranged comment spam from some whacko who not only tries to post his crap on MY blog, but who's posted the same wild ravings on thousands of other blogs. And it doesn't seem to matter what kind of blog, either. Cooking blog? "FLUORIDE! DEMONS!!" Sports blog? "FLUORIDE! DEMONS!!" My-Cute-Cat blog? "FLUORIDE! DEMONS!!"

And when I delete those irrelevant ravings, you have the audacity to try and play the Victim Card? You have the GALL to act like I'm fucking obligated to leave your unwanted intrusions untouched?

You're no better than someone who comes into my house and scrawls obscenities n lipstick on all the walls. You're a thug and a vandal.

You're also a thief. Because I've had use my time to wipe your scrawls off my walls. You've stolen my time, Pedro. I resent that. I resent it deeply.

And you're a coward. Everything I write here is under my real name. You? You hide behind the name of an Italian shoe company. (WTF? Is that supposed to be clever?)

Thug. Vandal. Thief. Coward.

Oh, and one more thing, Pedro: ONLY A COMPLETE FUCKING MORON WOULD STILL THINK THAT WRITING IN ALL CAPS IS A GOOD THING.

If I haven't made myself clear, here's the short and simple version, for you and every other spammer: Fuck off.

Sorry about that, folks. He got my dander up. Here's a kitten chaser to make up for it:



photo by John Nyberg from stock.xchang

The Way The Future Wasn't

Tempe Town Puddle

Tuesday night, a portion of the dam that creates Tempe Town Lake, a recreational spot in the normally dry Salt River riverbed bordering on Tempe, Arizona, burst and released about 750 million square feet of water into the riverbed, creating flash flood conditions downstream for a considerable distance. The Salt River bed is mostly undeveloped, so damages have been light, though there's some fear homeless people who ocasionally set up camp in the riverbed might have been washed away. (Hard to tell yet.)

The dam in question isn't a normal concrete dam, but one that uses a number of extremely large inflatable rubber barriers to hold back the water. The barriers can be inflated or deflated to control the lake's volume.

The barrier section that burst ("exploded" was the word used by some witnesses) was one that had been supposed to be replaced earlier this year. Since the dam was first built about ten years ago, that particular portion had been riding higher than other sections, and it's top edge had been out in the open sunlight, rather than slightly underwater like it was supposed to be.

Take a piece of rubber. Leave it out in the Arizona heat and sunshine for ten years. What do you expect to happen? Duh.

The replacement didn't happen when it should have, apparently for budgetary concerns on the part of the Tempe city council. Double-Duh.

The company that built and installed the rubber barriers is named Bridgestone. I wonder if this is the same Bridgestone that had to recall about six million defective auto tires about ten years ago when the tires began blowing out much faster than would have been expected? Triple-Duh.

Shorter Tempe Town Lake Dam Debacle: "Oh no, the rubber broke!"

(note on the photo shown above: According to the New Times article, the photo and several others were taken from the seventh floor of the old Hayden Flour Mills building. This explains why there was no photographer's credit given; the Hayden building has been empty and boarded up for years, so anyone photographing from there would be doing so illegally. I've seen other photos of the insides of the Hayden building, and it's pretty decrepit, so it was probably dangerous for the photographer as well.)

My Life As A Superstar Cheezburgerer

A couple of the captioned photos I've done for Pundit Kitchen, the news-photo wing of the Evil I Can Haz Cheezburger Empire, recently made it to the front page, to gain notoriety, acclaim, and votes. This first one has gotten over 800 votes:





























And this one just got front-paged a few days ago, and has gotten nearly 240 votes so far:

I thought that was pretty cool. Go, me. And then I had to read the comments posted to the photo, and realized that a lot of people were voting for and favoriting the picture not because of my witty, ingenious caption, but rather because Look at those awesome abs! Those guys are HOT!

Urrrmm....

Back in the old days, I knew a guy who had abs that chiselled and defined. I happened to see him nude from the rear one time (don't ask) and not only did he have those rippling abs, he had a rippling butt. Did you know there's a specific term to describe guys with that kind of physique? Yeah, really: Bastards!

*ahem* Where was I?

Bonus LOL below. This one I find rather odd, because it only got one vote on the "Voting" page (from where LOLs are picked to go to the front page), but it's been Favorited by over two dozen people. Huh. I think it's funny:

God, I Hope These Aren't For Real Books

In the spirit of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, artist Oleg Medvedev has produced some covers for Italian variations on the theme.





















(by Oleg Medvedev, CC-licensed, attribution, no derivatives)

Any resemblance between the Yeti and Chewbacca is strictly coincidental, and should not be taken as encouragement to make Classics/Star-Wars mashups the next literary fad.

Big Beetle

This is a beetle I snapped at work the other night. Actual size about two inches long.

I used the built-in camera on my new Droid cellphone, and I have to say I'm impressed that it was able to focus and capture that much detail at a distance of several inches away.

A Few Links

Moscow 2050 -- like Steampunk without the steam. (Gearpunk?) (by Valdimir Shelest, CC licensed -- attribution/noncommerical.)

TILT -- offering a slanted perspective on life. (Click "Project Info" at the top of the page for rights information.)

Both the above come from the BeHance Network, a website for artists to display their portfolios and projects. Great stuff there.


Unsolicited plug: One of our own favorite artists is Sandra SanTara, from whom we've bought a lot of prints and t-shirts, both for ourselves and as gifts for friends & family. Her website is Windwolf Studio. (Image use restricted, or I'd include a sample here.)


And moving from the sublime to the ridiculous: Fellowship of the Vuvuzelas

Adventures In Catspeak

Some guy that looks like me comes into the bedroom after washing his hands, and sees our cat Bastet on the bed.

SGTLLM: "Hey, Bastet, wants some pets?" [proceeds to pet cat]

Bastet: "Mrrrr, mrrrr, mrr--AROWWW, ROWWW, ROWWW!" [translation: "Sure, thanks a lo--HEY, YOUR HANDS ARE WET!"

SGTLLM: "Relax, cat." [continues petting]

Bastet: "ROWWW! ROWWWW! ROWWWWWW!!!" [trans: "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?"

SGTLLM: "My hands are dry now, what's the problem?"

Bastet: "ARROWWW! ROWWW!" [trans: "CHRIST, WHAT AN ASSHOLE."]