Friday: Solving one problem unearths another. Ugh.

It doesn't seem like I should have 16 year old images.

• So annoying.

Tuesday: So many parts of the eye doctor experience are not fun.

Making the appointment.  Going to the appointment.  Having them stab your eyes with air puffs.  Having them shine bright lights at you while telling you to not blink.  Having them put eye drops in that make your eyes all wonky and painful.  Having the eye drops make you super photosensitive so you have to hide like a vampire (more than usual).

At least today was a work-from-home day, because commencement was happening today and they didn't want people cluttering up campus.  That made it a bit better to spend 2.5 hours getting my eyes donked over.  The good news is that I get two sets of glasses with my (apparently) extra nice vision coverage.  That of course means that I spent twice as much money than I'd hoped I would, but will soon have regular glasses (that I will try hard not to squash) and sunglasses (a thing I have never before used).  It's a whole new world of vision.  I also now have my inter-ocular distance (67.5), and my prescription:

 So I can theoretically buy infinite cheap online glasses if I wanted.

I could probably even buy octagonal frames if I wanted.

Creepy eye sculpture is creepy.

 Also:

Pretty sure that's not the best translation you could have come up with, Google.

• I thought this was probably the best part of the series.
• Well, maybe they can should be less racist in the future instead of complaining that the paper caught them.
• This...this wasn't already a thing?  WTF? (And NSFWish.)

Thursday: The thing I've been fighting for months might actually be done.

I can't tell, because I filled up the disk it lives on, and didn't want to wait on the rsyncs to finish to a less full disk before going home.  I'll figure it out tomorrow.

Today I went to get my eyes checked, but I didn't get glasses.

Apparently my eyes are "basically the same" with "worse astigmatism" and it looks like I need to get "singular value decomposition" lenses.

There's a gym at the doctor's office now.

So I did the team-friendly thing of sticking my Cloyster in the open spot, and then fed everybody until they were full.

But I still got kicked out.

• The good news is that the Republicans again failed.  I wonder if there will be a revolt to get rid of McConnell.
• And despite McCain voting not to be awful, he's still awful, and Paul Krugman lays it out.
• I knew this because she's my senator, but it never hurts pointing out that Mazie Hirono is a wonderful person.
• This is worth reading in its entirety.  Why we have Russian sanctions.
• If this can kill paywalled journal articles, then it's a good thing.
• A Make-A-Wish kid wrote what is likely the best line in the new Thor movie.
• "JUNE FORAY: It was born in me. A woman can do anything. It was never a question."

Thursday: Yeah, all those symptoms again.

So I stayed home again.  The doctor said that it was probably just a cold, and so there's not much to do about it.  I am supposed to check to see that I don't develop a fever, because that likely means I've picked up a bonus infection, but other than that, just coast through the weekend.

And avoid murderous snowmen, but duh, obviously.

• I did not know that these two things happened on the same day.
• King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia died today, so it's time to remember how fucked up the Saudi succession process is.
• Chickens vs. Bunnies.
• Kitty and computers.
• Two weeks until Puppy Bowl.  It's a shame it's a giant commercial mess now.
• I guess this is one of Yelp's 100 highest rated restaurants in the country.  It's probably worth stopping by next time I'm driving around the island.
• I saw this comic earlier in the week, and re-saw it again today, so it's worth posting to be done with it.

Wednesday: That's probably a good sign you need to stay home from work.

Step one is when you wake up every two hours because the ear facing down is now clogged with the beginnings of an earache growing in it.  Step two is when you wake up to discover that your throat hurts and you can't form any actual word sounds.  Step three is the clincher, when you move slightly and that sets off a cascade of coughing and choking to drain what seems like a liter of gross goo from your lungs.  The good news is that I have a doctor appointment already scheduled for tomorrow, so maybe they have new drugs that make lungs not suck.

I did have the issue of figuring out what to have to eat, since I didn't pre-plan getting sick.  What sounded good was met with, "it's not particularly healthy."  Whatever.  I'm already sick.  I need some soup, and I need something tasty.

Soup and something tasty.

La Tour Cafe has very good French onion soup.  They're M&C is tasty, but a bit too goopy as it cools.  Together, this made a satisfactory lunch so I could return home and not move so my lungs didn't explode again.  I also bought a banh mi for dinner:

Like this.

That I ended up eating only half of.  I think this means that I know what I'm taking for lunch tomorrow if I wake up not dying.

Today's also Squirrel Appreciation Day, which is difficult to do when you live in the middle of the ocean with no squirrels.  Luckily, Julie celebrated it today, so I'm stealing her picture:

• Squirrel Appreciation Day.
• Just another random squirrel that popped up today.
• State of the Union.
• French Toast Crunch was only available by the time I was halfway done with high school.
• Jill Trent, Science Sleuth.  I'm looking forward to this comic.

Wednesday: Hello Kitty and Superheroes

Today was part two of the never ending chain of doctor's appointments that always starts with a single doctor appointment.  For reference, this was number two of five.  The goal for today: vaccines and test part A.  I'm pretty sure I ended up in the room that's usually used for kids.

For some reason.

I can't quite put my finger on it, though.

• Today I learned that the ESA doesn't have a PR rep on hand when they live stream events.  Honestly, isn't this the kind of thing that is obviously something you'd want to stop ahead of time?
• Just in case you weren't sure how much money is being extracted by the wealthy from corporations, the answer is 91%.
• Which is part of the reason that Walmart is in this position.  Hiring more people and paying them wages to prevent waste would directly cut into that wealth extraction.
• That is a nice clock.
• Yoshitaka Amano's art is a bit reason why I like the Vampire Hunter D books.

Thursday: I cannot determine my feelings about this cough syrup

On the one hand, it basically eliminated the cough that's been bothering me the past few days.  On the other hand, it does this through the action of powerful narcotics, so I've kind of spent the evening in a fog on the couch.  This is significantly better than last night when I had a cough attack that went on for like five minutes.  In any case, going to the doctor was probably the correct solution, as I now know a number of things I didn't before.

1. I have a mild fever, which probably helps explain why I haven't been able to find a comfortable temperature in the past three days.
2. It's not the flu.
1. Flu lab tests take roughly zero time, as I got the email about the results while waiting to fill my prescription.
3. Powerful narcotics make it hard to remember what point three was, or even if there was a point three to make.

Then I went to run some errands, because that's a great plan.  First was Office , because I needed small file boxes to hold my Taiwan/Japan trip stuff.  I've been trying to do this for a while now, as it makes it easy to find things from a given trip.  Plus, I can dump all the foreign currency into the box as well, so I know where to look the next time I visit that country.  I didn't get the right size, however, so I have extra thick boxes.  Look here.  I usually use the 11.5"x8.75"x2.125", but this time got 13"x9"x4".  

Next was groceries, as I needed to get juice.  That's when I saw this:

Today has been weird, but at least now I have 12 mexican cokes, 6 mexican sprites, and 6 mexican fantas.  Somehow.

Then back to the doctor for the appointment I had scheduled before getting sick.  That went pretty much as expected, with me waiting again for a prescription to be filled, and then leaving with $13000 worth of drugs.

No, seriously.

Here are some links.  Looking at the tab icons, it's probably mostly animals or pokemon.

• Pokemon.
• Squirrel.
• Spider Man.
• Pandas.
• Squirrel.
• Food.
• This is the McDonalds thing I tried to describe yesterday.  "Demi glace cheese roller" according to the translate bot.  I think that's supposed to be "demi-glace cheese roller."

Thursday: On the benefits of not having consumption

"Wait, when were you in the 1800s?"

I wasn't.

"So, Russian prison, then?"

Damn it, no.

"Have you been scaring the peasants such that they've started rumors that you're a vampire?"

Just shut up.  No, this was a test the doctor wanted done, and it turns out that I don't have tb so much that I had to point out the test site to the nurse.  Woo.

Because hot dogs.

• Knitted bird.
• Is it crazy that I'm thinking about buying a hundred pack of Belarussian currency?
• What an asshole.
• Wait...what?  I...I think maybe I'm going to go lie down for a forever.

Sunday: Adventures in health care

I guess I'm still getting the hang of this "being a grownup" and "having really snazzy health insurance" thing.

I've been getting better over the past week, so I assumed that I'd largely defeated the scourge of the upper respiratory disease/bronchitis.  Then, suddenly last night, teh dethh decided that it was time to pull a knife, and had me cough crap up into my right ear.  That was when I realized that I was going to need to consult with a doctor to pull out the big guns and murder this thing, possibly while it sleeps, possibly by burning down its house while I stand on the lawn laughing as it pounds on the windows.

Seriously, I was very unhappy this morning.  I'd hoped that sleeping on one side would drain my ear, but that wasn't the case.  I consulted the webpage for my insurance, and it said to just call up, and they'd see what they could do.  The phone nurse advised that "yeah, ears are important," and scheduled me for a 3:40 appointment.  Today.  On a Sunday.  I go, wait a little bit longer, have a quick consult, and leave with a packet of disease assassins antibiotics.

All well and good, and hopefully by tomorrow I'll be completely back to normal.  However, this brings up my standard thoughts: what if I didn't have snazzy health insurance?  This is largely why I don't understand anyone who thinks that a universal health care system would be a bad thing.  Why should anyone have to struggle through a day with an ear ache?  Why should a fairly minor thing cost someone piles of money to resolve?  I ended up having to pay like $33, $3 of which covered parking.

Alternate strategy: Everyone just eats tasty uranium burgers to defeat all illness.  Inflation suggests this would be in the $4 range today.

• This is a good use of superheroes.
• This is a dumb use of superheroes.  Seriously?  Haven't you already killed Selina like 99 times?  And made her pregnant?  And made her give up the baby when you ran out of ways to use it against her?  And ripped her damn heart out?  What did Catwoman ever do to you, DC comics?
• I enjoyed this image.
• Maybe it's just me, but all the guys in this redraw look like douchebags. Especially Tarzan.
• Squirtle squad!
• Yay for someone else planning on posting regularly!  A check of my archive suggests that in about two weeks, I'll have two years of daily posts.

Tuesday: Definitely sick

It was pretty easy to confirm, given that I woke up with my throat continuing to be on fire, and coughed up things that were in colors you're not generally supposed to cough up.  I think that means that bronchitis is back again for a standard summer visit.  It wasn't so bad that I felt it necessary to go to the doctor, but if it hasn't cleared up somewhat by tomorrow, I think that's my next step.  I figured that it'd be super busy today after the three day weekend, and sitting in a room with sick people (even if I am myself sick) isn't ever fun.

My strategy for dealing with it today was to drink a bunch of water, and sleep in in the hope that would resolve it.  That helped, but there's only one thing that can truly help when you're sick:

Unfortunately, those don't exist until the Great Mushroom War.

Since my apartment has no soup, no juice, and pretty much nothing needed for getting not-sick.  This led to me driving across town to get the best soup in the world:

Ramen.

While I was sleeping this morning, I had planned on getting this, and that led to a weird dream where I did, but forgot to order extra menma.  In reality, when I went, I also forgot to order extra menma.  That didn't matter, however, as there was no menma in the store to be had.  In any case, the super thick and rich broth helped my throat, and I got gyoza so I could make an extra spicy dipping sauce to help as well.

And then I went and bought soup and juice and vitamins and other various drugs that can be used to mask the symptoms of being sick while my immune system gathers resources and launches a counter-attack.

One more thing I noticed while sleeping this morning: after I woke up, I turned on my TV to the news, as that's usually a nice drone for the background.  It was generally fine, as Martin Bashir's voice is reasonably calm, except when he decides it's time to be gratuitously sarcastic.  However, he's followed up by Chris Matthews, who shouts all the time.  Even worse, Matthews is followed by Al Sharpton, who doesn't ever stop shouting.  Someone should really introduce these people to Bob Ross.

• Tiny red panda.
• That's an interesting story.
• This can be summarized by just noting that gun manufacturers's best interests are to sell guns to criminals, and then convince regular people that the only way to defend themselves is if they also buy lots of guns.  Stunning how close this is to the NRA's view.
• Why top tax rates should go up.
• "Oh, no, cat.  They'll never find your body.  I'll make sure of that."

Thursday: Sick

I think it's bronchitis again.  If I don't feel better tomorrow, I'm going to go to the doctor and see about obtaining the strongest of antibiotics.  Or, you know, appropriate strength antibiotics that will do the job properly, which I will take with perfect vigilance to ensure that I solve the illness without contributing to the evolution of any drug resistant germs.

Maybe I'm overthinking it.

Anyway, soup, juice, naps, extraneous math.  Turns out something I thought was complicated is not actually complicated at all.

This looks like the most comfy theater ever.

Pigeons are jerks.

Seriously, I have piles of waving bear pictures.

Oops.

• Squirrels!
• This reminds me, I need to make a cookie pie.
• Turtle beats dog.  The shell probably helps.
• I'm continually baffled that anyone who doesn't have millions of dollars would want to vote for him.
• Wait, you can put mac&cheese into a pastry? WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THIS EARLIER, SCOTLAND?
• Raccoon and cat are friends.
• I guess it's good that MSU is included, but WTF?
• Yes. People are so uncertain about what to do, they're willing to pay the US Treasury to hold their money for up to 20 years.  Why aren't we using that good faith to borrow tons of money and dump it into the economy?
• No.

Tuesday: I sleep like suck

I've known this fact for years, but after mentioning it every time I go to the doctor, one of them finally suggested I get a sleep study to figure out if there are reasons why I sleep so suckily.  Basically, it's like a sleep-over at the hospital, but they glue all sorts of wires and shit to you to monitor things.  You also have to wear this:

Just FYI: I hate this thing.

which let's them make sure that you're still alive and that you have oxygen in your blood.  Generally a boring time, although I did notice this on the preliminary form discussing how sleepy you feel:

Brought to you by the perspective tool in gimp.

Seriously Kaiser? You're a big grown up company now. Can't you learn how homophones work?

Anyway, the preliminary results from the test suggest that I "suck at sleeping," which means that I'm not imagining this fact.  Hopefully the detailed results will be a bit more helpful.

Friday: Food puns

I went to the doctor today. Turns out I'm healthier than last year. Woo.  Also turns out that I've gone more blind since last time I got glasses.  Less woo.  However, I did order new glasses, so hopefully those will arrive fairly quickly, so I'll be able to see things that are all fuzzy right now.  I was a bit lazy on the frames, and got something close to what I have now.  What's up with all the glasses that have super fat ear pieces?  Did everyone decide that peripheral vision was overrated?

Anyway, healthier than last year.

So I had this for dinner.

• Graffiti squirrel!
• I didn't really like the last logo, but at least it didn't look like it was drawn by a soulless corporate marketeer.
• I think this is basically the commentary I would have made on Monday about this article, if I was an actual biologist.