Still not hungry

In the past 36 hours, I have eaten:
* 3 marshmallow peeps (chocolate reindeer)
* 1 southern chicken sandwich from McDonald’s
* 4 holiday cookies

And that’s it. Work has been so hectic that I’ve barely had time to pee, much less eat…and then I had to run to class last night (hence managing to grab a sandwich from McD’s, which did make me a little late to class), which meant that by the time I got home, it was really too late to eat. This morning, I skipped breakfast because of a presentation that needed polishing ASAP…and spent the whole damn day working on that same presentation at the expense of everything else that needed to get done.

Oh, by the way, I still have work to do. I’m just taking a break while some things I need are being assembled. And I’ve ordered a pizza.

In other news, for those who don’t watch the twitter feed, my dear husband did it again. I guess we’re going to the Dominican Republic in Feb. Here’s where we’re staying: http://foxyurl.com/N3J

A Test Of Your Deductive Skills

Now, first, what can you deduce from this sign?

ANSWER (highlight to the right of this to see): The floor is frequently slippery.

If you got it right, congratulations on your skills of deduction. I guess if you can’t make that deduction, you deserve to fall on the floor.

Also, from the graphic, it seems like the sign is actually warning you that the floor frequently contains Portals.

My boys are sickly :(

Those who follow my tweeting may have seen that the two most important males in my life, DH and Pancake, are both in need of surgery.

For DH, he is getting a bullectomy. I’d love to link you to a site explaining it, but much googling (and binging) has led me to few if any results. I mean, there’s one site that talks about it in reference to emphysema (which is apparently the most common way to end up with a giant bullae in your lung) or to COPD (other common way), but neither of those apply to DH. DH has a congenital bullae. It is possible that he’s had it for 2 years or 20 years. It’s caused by a weakness in one area of the lung that causes a pocket to form where there shouldn’t be one, hence being common in patients with emphysema (b/c that weakens the lung tissue). It isn’t causing him any immediate breathing problems or stress, but it could burst or become infected (the latter being more likely) at any point and cause him lots of pain and potential lung collapse. The thoracic specialist/surgeon said that if DH were in his 70s, they might not bother with it, but with him being in his 30s, the chances of it becoming bad are higher. So, to remove the large bullae, what they do is go in kind of like they did for my gall bladder (although they won’t blow him up the same way…they’ll collapse his lung and get room to work that way, from what I’ve read…I watched a video of it being done), with camera and instruments. First, before they cut in, they’ll send a camera down his throat and into his lung to verify that it’s where and what they think it is from the cat scan. Then, assuming it is, they’ll do the bullectomy using 3 small incisions for camera and instruments, triangulated to allow them to work without tripping over each other. They’ll basically remove the air from the bullae, and there’s some other bits, too, but the point being, they’ll make it so his lung can inflate fully again. He’ll be in the hospital for 2-3 days following the surgery, and during that time, he’ll have a chest tube. The surgeon said he’d be able to work again in about a week but that it’ll take 3-4 weeks for him to be at 100%. DH and I still need to talk more about the plan for this. He came home for awhile, but he was restless and wanted to go to work. So, he’s at the casino now, and he and I will figure out the details later…but surgery is scheduled for 7/6. It’s very likely that I will work remotely from the hospital during that week, though I need to check in with work on that…I may also just take the week off so I don’t have to worry with it, but problem is we have a project milestone that I need to be there for during that week, so…well, point being, it’s a TBD situation.

While DH was finding this out, I was at the vet with Pancake. I’d been neglectful and not taken him in for a checkup for ~18 months. (I’d taken him in because he had a bump on his head during the summer last year, but I hadn’t scheduled a check-up b/c Banfield ticked me off during that visit…and then my work project (now cancelled) kicked in and I lost track of time until now. Point being, I was a bad cat parent. ) So, I was taking him a new vet that is a cat-only practice. And around the same time I made the appointment, coincidentally, his breath got really nasty smelling. I’d changed his cat food, so I changed it back, but the really nasty breath persisted, so I asked them to take a good look at his teeth, figuring he probably needed a cleaning and he’s at the age where I might need to start brushing his teeth. But, it was worse than that. He has advanced periodontal disease. His gums are all pus-filled and nasty. He’s already lost two of his small grooming teeth in the front. And I feel terrible because if we’d caught this earlier, it’d be better. Plus, he’s probably been in pain, although, as cats do, he’s hiding it. He’s been eating dry food and such, and his appetite is strong and healthy. But, anyways, this is why yearly check-ups are important, because this sort of thing can sneak up on you. He probably had some plaque build-up that just got worse without care and I didn’t realize it. Anyways, so he’s getting a full cleaning on Monday and they may have to take his teeth out if any of them have more than 50% decay. The vet said his gums are receding badly, that there’s a bump on his canine teeth that is visible that shouldn’t be visible, so she suspects that he will have some teeth that have to be removed. The good news is that this doesn’t really affect his lifestyle. Even with no teeth, he can still eat both soft and hard food. It may change his face structure a little, but generally, the most important thing is that he won’t be in pain. And I feel like a total jerk, because I let it get to this point, unknowingly, but still. I should have known better, and he should have been seen 6-8 months ago, and maybe we wouldn’t have gotten to this point. Granted, Maggie never needed a cleaning in her life…she had all her teeth when she died, and she never had more than a tiny bit of build-up that the vet cleaned with a little scraper and a regular cat toothbrush…but all cats are different. The vet pointed out that some cats are more susceptible than others. These are excuses, though. I was a bad owner, and Pancake is suffering for it. Pancake goes in for dental cleaning and potential (likely) surgery on Monday. He’ll be on antibiotics until then, and he’ll be on painkillers and antibiotics for a week or so afterward. And tonight, he’s having Alaskan salmon.

Speaking of Alaska, some of y’all may know that we were tentatively planning to take a cruise to Alaska in July. We held off on booking to see what happened with DH’s lung thingie. Given things as they are, we’re going to skip the cruise this year. DH will probably be recovered in time, but we don’t want to tempt Finagle’s Law by booking a non-refundable cruise.

In other news, I’m doing fine! Also, it’s too damn hot outside. You may have seen my tweet that my credit cards melted into one congealed mass in my wallet, that I’d left in my car all day while at work. My Dad quipped, “That’s one way to consolidate your credit cards.” He’s too funny for his own good.

I’m a Fake Life Master!

I have over 300 masterpoints! Yay! And, I got my fake Life Master (fLM) in the best way: with fake points.

You see, the ACBL instituted a really stupid rule the year before I joined. The rank of Life Master has colored point requirements, intended (to some extent) to require you to play at high-skill events to qualify for the rank. For most people, the hardest color to get is gold, because getting gold requires you to play at a (so-called) nationally ranked* event…and win. You’re also required to get a certain quantity of silver (sectional level) and red (regional level) points. So, it’s Gold > Red > Silver > Black (club games) > Colorless (internet play). These colored requirements existed before I joined. And, I have a ton of red points, all the silver I need plus some, and all the gold I need plus some. I also have a high amount of colorless points, because we play on the internet (BBO) alot.

But, the year before I joined, the ACBL instituted a rule that requires you to get black points. Specifically, you have to get 50 black points, which is more than any other required color. And, unlike any other colored point, having the point color that is a rank above black doesn’t count toward black points. That is, you can’t use a spare 50 silver points as black points.

Here’s my beef with this rule (aside from that it’s keeping me from being an official LM):

• It’s damn hard to get 50 black points. Club games don’t give out very many points per session, because they’re *club* games…they aren’t supposed to be very competitive, so they don’t reward you very much for winning. Also, they don’t get high attendance, and point award limits are based on attendance. The most you can get is ~1.5 points, for a top award at a well-populated club game. So, just getting up to 50 points is much harder than at a sectional, regional, or national.
• You can only get black points at clubs. Silver points are occasionally given out at clubs, and red points are sometimes given out at NAOPs and GNTs (special events that aren’t regionals). But, the only way you can get black points is to go to a club game.
• Most club games are held during the day, because most club players are retired. We’re actually relatively lucky to have as many club games near us as we do, but even with that, it’s very hard for a person who works a standard week to get out to a club game. If you live in an area less bridge-oriented than here, it’s very likely that you, as a working person, wouldn’t be able to find a club game at all. (By the way, even though there are two clubs here with decent timing that are 10 and 23 miles away from us respectively, we’re also a bit screwed because this area has a higher-than-normal density of very good bridge players…meaning those club games are VERY hard to win.)
• Even though the concerns with internet play are mostly unfounded and based on fear rather than reality (and easily preventable if the ACBL cared to do so), internet “clubs” don’t get you black points. They get you colorless points, and only a third of your points for any rank can be colorless. Meaning, for LM, only 100 colorless points count, even if you have more than that. (I don’t have more than 100 colorless, but it’d be much easier for me to hit that point count than to get 50 black, just because there are more internet games in the evenings and on weekends, and I don’t have to leave the house to do one.)
• With the exception of the club games in this area, club games don’t (or shouldn’t) require special skill to win. You’re generally playing with the same people over and over again, not a wide base of bridge talent. So, whereas the red and gold requirement (and even silver to some extent) can be justified as requiring a certain level of play, the club point requirement only exists to force you to spend $$$ at the clubs, which were supposedly suffering vs. regionals and sectionals. And rather than let the bridge version of the free market do its job, the ACBL created an artificial incentive to bail out the clubs.

If I gave a damn (or if I thought the ACBL did), I might write all of this down and send it to them. But, I’m pretty well convinced that the ACBL is filled with retirees who, for all their moaning about getting young people to play, are not willing to learn or accept the technology that would actually encourage people my age and younger to take up the game…and that they’re arrogant asses to boot. So, I’ve decided I’m quite happy with being a fake Life Master and that I may well *intentionally* avoid club games just so that I never get my LM under this stupid rule.

Oh, and what’s better is that I got my fLM with internet points. Ha and ha! Take that, ACBL! fLM party to be scheduled at a later date…possibly over Memorial Day weekend.

* Note: There’s a color even higher than gold: platinum. The events that award platinum are what I would consider nationally ranked events…but that’s just semantics, I suppose.

Potential Silence

I just wanted to generally give a heads’ up that we may go into a period of silence (or very rare posting) on the blog over the next few months. Twitter will probably get updated more often, just because I can update it from more places…and the micro-blogging lends itself to quick moments of news. Also, for anyone who also follows me under my RL name on Facebook, I am barely on there anymore. You’re better off here. There’s too many people on Facebook that I can’t share things with…namely folks from work.

Anyways, I’m working on a work project with huge visibility (I presented directly to our CEO today), and it is a ton of work. I’m also back to doing more sporadic daytrip-style travel. The project I’m on is cool, and I enjoy working on it, but it keeps me busy. I’m working beyond 50 hour weeks these days.

On top of that, the class that I’m in for school this term is very demanding. We have a large amount of reading every week, plus a paper and presentation due every week. Point being, I’m going to be swamped for the next 10 weeks (school term) at least. It’s very likely that I’ll be swamped until fall with work, too. So, if you are not seeing frequent updates here, I’m just bogged down. Check Twitter for the latest in mini-posting, and I’ll post longer things here as I’m able.

In other news, I got an A in my last class. The perfect 4.0 GPA continues! And, our sign arrived for the Pooh room…click for the picture!

Time Travel

As many of you have noticed, the blog has gone back in time to catch up on posts from our (very awesome, wanna go back NOW) Disney trip. As such, I skipped over quite a few events that would normally warrant a blog post. I don’t want to spend another month re-capping, so below is a one paragraph, catch-all summary of the things that were, January 2009. As is fitting for anything dealing with time travel, I shall start with Lost…

Lost is back on! Desmond’s baby named Charlie, the others speak Latin, woohoo! B* made me a cake with a Dharma logo. It was delicious…disappeared very quickly, did Ben turn the wheel, shift cake through time? Obama officially president, yay! Didn’t care about inauguration until the day it was on, then was sad I couldn’t watch live and had to work instead. Re-org’d at work into new group but otherwise similar. Got one estimate for the pipe burst repairs from the guy(s) who did our basement, liked their work, but the painting estimate alone was higher than was to paint whole basement. Something smells funny in Denmark, yo. Business name is of the form, [name] the [job]er…which led to Joe-the-plumber, bob-the-builder joking between DH and I. DH has been working odd hours at his second job. Very stressful. Ran Survivor at Mensa AGOG. Had to scramble to get to the minimum ten to play, but once we got there, it was AWESOME. Everyone had bonzer good time. Yay. Knee has been hurting alot lately. Also, period has been irregular. (Not related.) WTF is up with me? Wish knee would stop hurting. But yet, I will be going skiing on Saturday, yay! And knee can just suck on that, thank you very much. Pancake continues to be adorable kitteh. Races me up the stairs. I almost won last night, but only because he let me have a 5 step head start. Thought L4D was an evil time suck, but then Mr. Moo introduced me to Braid, which now is on my bedroom xbox (not mytsukata gamertag). Damn you, Mr. Moo! Got special L4D achievement last night for blowing the witch’s head off, Cr0wnd! Sweet. So cold outside. But weather Saturday promises to be ski-awesome. Found giant and strange fruit at the store, called Pomelo, is huge and we could kill a small child with it, but we won’t. Instead, will eat. Also got some honey tangerines. Enjoying finding and trying out new fruits. Finished second term of class, am 12.5% done with MBA. Group project ended much better than it started. Next term, taking two classes: Effective Leadership *coughbullshitcough* and Negotiations & Conflict Management (win win win). Hoping negotiations will make me awesome at negotiation such that I can help Mensa with hotel negotiation stuff. Will speak quietly so they have to lean in, then will change meeting location suddenly without notice…then will threaten to kill their daughter. Oh and how did Frogurt’s shirt fit Sawyer? Nonsense.

First Lostie to catch the embedded (very subtle) clue in the style of Lost gets something nifty, though I’m not sure what. Adoration? That’s nifty, right?

Twas the night before the night before the night before Christmas…

I don’t normally Twitter-ship, but it’s the best way to blog this:

about 10 hours ago from digsby: 5-starred Don’t Speak and Underneath It All on Hard…singing & guitar simultaneously. Only 4 stars on expert tho’
about 8 hours ago from digsby*&#@!!!! We just had a pipe burst, spewing water through the wall and all over the place for about 20 mins before we got the water shut off.
about 8 hours ago from digsby At least it was a hot water pipe
about 8 hours ago from digsby: Thank goodness (and our night owl selves) that we were awake. Otherwise, our whole house would have flooded before we knew.

Because today was to be a light day for work, I stayed up late and waited for my DH to get home from the casino. I worked on our holiday card (which is in the mail for anyone whose address I had) and used my brand new mic stand (from B* – yay thank you!) to test out my Mad NoDoubt Skillz. Then, DH got home, and we adjourned to the bedroom. While we were letting a Season 1 30 Rock ep lull us to sleep, I heard something that sounded like loud static. I thought something was wrong with the TV, but I muted it, and the noise was still there. I roused DH to take a look, and once he figured out what I was talking about, he said, “WATER!” and we ran to the laundry room. Water was spewing everywhere, like a fountain. It was hot water. DH’s chest got burned a little, as he fought his way to the source. We thought the water pipe was backing up at first or that the laundry machine’s valve had burst, so we tried to turn off the water sources for the laundry, but that didn’t stop it. DH realized that the water was actually coming out of the wall. Our hot water pipe had burst and the ensuring spewage had burst through the wall. There was 3 inches of standing water in our laundry room, soaking into our hallway, spilling into the garage. Our shoes, Pancake’s litter, and our coats all got soaked. While we were shutting off the water, we realized it was raining in our basement crawl space, and a small waterfall had formed where the crawlspace becomes a walking space.

We managed to find the main water valve cut off and shut off the water to the house, which stopped the incoming flow. Then, while I got out our handy-dandy shopvac out of the garage (best $30 I’ve spent, for all the times it’s de-flooded us) and set it up to start sucking up the excess, DH called our homeowners’ insurance to start the process of clean-up and recovery. As of right now, Homepro is setting up fans, dryers, and dehumidifiers in the laundry room, hallway, 1st floor bathroom, and basement storage area.

A bunch of my pictures, posters, and such from the old apartment got ruined. I’d had them in storage, still in the box from when I moved, along with a bunch of silverware, my old microwave, and my old toaster. I thought they’d gotten lost in the move, so it wasn’t as painful to lose them as you’d think. All of DH’s records and tax forms for the past 10 years got soaked.

But, we are thankful for what is good, despite the bad:

• (TMI alert – highlight to read) We almost had sex instead of watching 30 Rock, but I didn’t want to get messy right before bed, and I was tired. It was bad enough that we were buck naked while doing most of the initial panic and clean-up, but can you imagine if we had been mid-coitus? (/TMI)
• Most of what got destroyed this time was stuff that we had in “deep storage”…meaning we hadn’t touched it in years. It’s probably for the best that we’re cleaning it out and throwing it out. The tax forms and papers were, unfortunately, in that area because they’d gotten re-located to high ground after the basement flood last year.
• The Homepro people think that the carpet, pad, and walls will dry out. Granted, it’ll take 2-3 days of us having loud fans going…and this time it’s in our primary living and walking space instead of in the basement where we can shut it off and ignore it. Well, I guess we’ll just watch TV and “live” in the basement for awhile, as the fans down in the basement are not nearly as loud.
• We were awake. If we had been asleep, who knows how bad it would have gotten before we realized something was wrong?

For those with holiday plans with us, things are a bit TBD right now. We’ll keep in touch. Plumber is on his way, and that’s the next hurdle before we know things.

PS – Pancake is quite upset by all of this. He’s had to relocate his pooping twice in the past 12 hours. He’s currently locked away in the Iguana room, with food, water, and his box all strategically placed. I also opened the window for him, which should amuse him enough. Poor kitteh!

On So-Called User Agreements

It’s not an agreement if it’s forced on you. It might be a rule or a declaration or even a law, but it’s not an agreement if you don’t get the chance to agree to it.

The trend in online-enabled software these days is to have some kind of user agreement, generally that spells out if and how you can distribute the software as well as specifics on use. You agree, often by clicking a button, when you install the software or start the software. Usually, if you don’t agree, you’re kicked out of the software or prevented from installing it. That, I have no problem with, because you are prompted to agree or disagree. I also have no problem with this because you haven’t paid for anything at the point where the prompt occurs, or if you have, it’s generally easy enough to get a refund at that point.

My issue is with companies that change the user agreements at a moment’s notice, after the point of purchase, and remove services you previously had if you don’t agree. Specifically, the Nintendo Wii user agreement has been changed with the latest “software feature update” to state that Nintendo can update your system at any time and that the update may delete games or applications from your system at any time to “protect the safety” of the system. I do not want to agree to this, but if I don’t, my Wii will not function in the way that it was promised to function when I bought it.

Furthermore, if I do agree to the update, Nintendo may update their user agreement again at some later date without notifying me, as that is what is specified in the new user agreement. This further undermines the agreement. What’s more, I’m pretty sure that if I took my car to the dealership for maintenance and as part of that maintenance, without my agreement, they removed my custom radio and replaced it with a standard one, I’d have a legal claim. There is no law to protect consumers from that same sort of shenanigan in software, however.

In short, it’s not a user agreement; it’s a user edict. And it pisses me off.

I have not done the Twilight hack. I have not downloaded the Homebrew Channel. I haven’t really planned to do it, because the features I get aren’t worth the trouble to me (yet). So, I’m not the person that they have in mind in making this change. Nonetheless, I’m pissed off by it. Unfortunately, I have no effective way to express my grievance. I could stop buying Nintendo games, but my one purchase means little. I could write a letter, but again, it won’t mean anything. Nintendo has already dismissed my type as “geeks and Otaku.”

What’s worse to me is that the Homebrew Channel is not hurting Nintendo in any way. It is not sapping revenue from them. It doesn’t allow users to do anything that they shouldn’t already be able to do. Yet, Nintendo is going after it with a vengeance…seemingly just because it’s there.

I do not like this trend in user agreements. First, I’d appreciate the honesty of calling it what it is. Second, I want some consumer protection enacted that would protect software users from abuse of so-called agreements.

Tonight until now

Best part of tonight: Shouting at 10pm, along with a few hundred thousand of Chicagoland’s finest, “7…6…5…4…3…2…1….(pause for CNN animation/graphic)…..YEAAAAHHHHHHHH! WOOHOOO!”

Worst part of tonight: DH driving me to train station where I left my car this morning only to find a dead battery due to me leaving the lights on. Also, spending 90 minutes trying to jump start proving to be unsuccessful…likely SUPER dead battery. Bad experience with roadside assistance suckitude. too tired to write more.

Edited at 9:45am to add: Car is fine now. The tow company that came this morning was able to jump it. Took straight to AutoZone for a battery test, and the battery is good. Must have just been really dead and we weren’t able to get enough juice from DH’s car to get the engine to turn over. (Tow company had one of those super-powered battery zappers.)

Pet Peeve: The “Did you see the e-mail?” e-mail

I see no point to the “Did you see my/her/his e-mail?” e-mail, nor its close cousin, the “Please respond to my/his/her e-mail,” e-mail. It is particularly vexing when received less than 24 hours after the original mail, and it’s downright annoying when received less than 8 hours after the original mail.

If I *did* see the e-mail, presumably, I’m working on responding to it. Perhaps I’m trying to gather information. Perhaps I’m waiting to confirm a piece of data. Perhaps I just want to let my thoughts settle to make sure that you get a good response. Either way, the e-mail is in progress. Sending another e-mail just means that either I have to ignore the second e-mail or spend time replying to it that could have been spent on the original task.

If I didn’t see the e-mail, there’s no guarantee that I’ll see this one. Thus, you’re better off just picking up the phone and giving me a call. This saves us both an e-mail.

The only reason I can see for this kind of e-mail is if the deadline for a needed response has been missed or has changed, or if the original e-mail wasn’t clear about who should respond (i.e., was sent to a large list, and the lead is now directing who should respond). (In the former case, I think a phone call may be warranted, just in case the original e-mail was missed or not received.)