Click images for desktop size: "High Life" by Unknown It was my birthday up until a few minutes ago.
It didn't seem to mean much. Thanks to the people who remembered.
My sole celebration was to go to the Chinese Buffet. It was better in my memory than in reality. Probably its just the world of memory. And not having a puppy to filch tidbits for.
I still rather enjoyed it but in a softer way than I usually enjoy these things.
I was tired. Had to run around a bit and get my shoulder x-rays. I finally got an appointment with an orthopedist. For Monday. It's a bit
Click images for desktop size: "Doris Day" dull that I have to hand carry my x-rays in. I got to look at them at least. I can't tell a thing, other than it's my shoulder for sure.
Other cause for birthday celebrations was I got my first pay check. It was at least 8 hours short, 8 hours that should have been overtime. I didn't want to talk to the boss about it until I'd studied and confirmed the figures. It will have to wait until the next paycheck anyway.
I got my new debit card but I have to go make the long trek to the bank to activate it. Probably do that tomorrow/today. I can't really touch the money until then. Even though it's a short check there's still enough to make a dent in my debts. That's important.
My friend has waived enough of the debt payment so I can get a new Apple keyboard. I hate having to buy it but the Logitech board is horrid to use. I hate the key feel but the monstrosity is that the keys are just small enough to force a ridiculous amount of typos. And whenever I type an A or hit tab, I also hit the Cap Lock . . . So it's frustrating.
The thing I did mostly on my birthday was play with Snow Leopard. the newest update to Mac OS X.
Back in the day an update to OS X was a sort of geeky thrill. Now that Apple has gotten so big and
Click images for desktop size: "Life Cover" by Cole Phillips Microsoft continues to crumble its lacks the joy of participation.
There are a couple of things I like about Snow Leopard. Its faster and feels snappier. Too many of my standard daily apps don't work. A couple required upgrades but a couple are just dead. It also seems to have a problem burning to my external DVD Burner. Which is a stone drag.
But what I like the least is that way too many icons now look distorted and fuzzy! Like hell really. I can't figure out why. Some of the 128 px icons look fine, but others are a real mess, including some of the 256 px ones. Since OS X now permits 512 px icons this is annoying. Even stranger is that several of the pre-installed icons look terrible too. Disc Utility looks amazingly bad. It also crashed several times while trying to repair permissions. Creepy in a way I associate more with Windows than with Apple, which just goes to show how the two have grown closer in feel and philosophy.
Apple was better when it was a decided underdog, trying to appeal to the hardcore. iPods and iPhones have pushed them into great wealth and success and then into tyranny and sloppiness.
The rest of the day was spent sleeping and dreaming of my puppy coming home to me. Hopefully next week. I'm on edge enough about this to need constant reassurance.
I miss my puppy. She's okay but chances are she misses me too.
My days have been filled with working nights while only managing to sleep 3 or 4 hours a day. I'm in a bit of a constant daze. Its endurable. I don't like the job at all and am sort of glad that they'll be moving at the end of September. Probably moving to a location that will be inaccessible to me.
I get asked questions.
About the girl who used a high speed grinder to make sparks fly from her body. No. I did not find that sexy. I did find it terribly cool.
It would have been the same if had been a guy up there 90% naked and touching tender body parts with power tools. I wouldn't have stared as hard at a naked guy but watching people potentially do great harm to themselves in the realm of entertainment is a rush that guys seem to enjoy.
Like I had a gay friend who got drunk and decided he wanted to get a tattoo on his rear end. He wanted a bunch of blue birds, hearts and flowers flying out of his rectum.
Whatever you think of that pales beside his decision to go to the Pike in Long Beach to do this. There are plenty of tattoo parlors on the Pike. If you don't know the Pike is a beat to death amusement park out on a pier. The area is filled with bikers, dock workers and hard drinkers. The tattoo parlors are not cute and cool artistic studios. They are old school and cater to the man who
Click images for desktop size: "Still Life" by Jan Lievens wants his girl friends name tattooed on his chest or a naked mermaid tattooed on his bicep.
This was not the place that you would figure an effeminate set designer should be going. Of course I went along because I knew there would be trouble and none of the trouble would be my responsibility.
We got to the Pike and the set designer was sobering up. We stopped in a bar. Behind the bar was a low stage with a band where I knew the guitarist. it was a surprise meeting.
I told him what the set designer was planning to do as an explanation as to why I was in a sea front bar known for broken teeth and smashed skulls. He was there for $100 bucks a night, as the band was cheaper than replacing the juke box that invariably got busted during the nightly bar fight.
The guitarist tried to talk the set designer out of his plan. He explained it was dangerous and that none of the tattoo artists on the Pike would welcome his custom.
The set designer stood on his rights as a human being, which are true and accurate in a civilized society but this area really didn't respect individuals too well. People in the bar were already giving the set designer, who was sharply dressed, all 5' 6" of him and muttering some pretty nasty comments.
The guitarist implored the set designer to reconsider. This just made the set designer more trenchant and determined. So having done his best the guitarist joined us. he felt he deserved to see the fun after he'd worked so hard to do the right thing.
We started the search of tattoo parlors. As soon as the set designer described what he wanted to the bare chested men we were thrown out of their joints, usually with threats of violence.
I was impressed with the little guy. No matter how much the much larger, dangerous looking tattoo artists threatened and berated him he stood firm and talked about the stupidity of discrimination and his refusal to give up his right to have pretty birds, flowers and hearts tattooed around his rectum. I was also surprised that with all the yelling and swearing no one tried to punch us out.
Only one guy offered to do the job and I pulled the set designer out of there as it was obvious the guy was going to get him into a compromising position and then just hurt him.

Click images for desktop size: "Pin Up" by JW McGinnis The set designer wouldn't give up. His insistence on walking into places that clearly wanted to hurt him was a lot of fun. Much better than TV.
The only negative was he finally did find a female artist willing to do the job. Since her work displayed was mainly of burning skulls and various devils I thought she might not be the one to render the set designers artistic vision. She spent a few hours doing the work. I went and listened to my friends band while I waited for him. (I drove so I had to.)
The negative was that the set designer made me inspect the finished product. The woman had seriously done her best but the work was crude. It wasn't artistic. The hearts looked like they should have been bleeding or had daggers shoved through them. The flowers were blobs and the blue birds looked like hawks. That and the fact that staring at guys naked butts is not a fave past time of mine was depressing.
The set designer went to one of the trendy tattoo artists on the strip. I can't remember his name but he was famous for doing Cher's tattoos. He cleaned the work up quite a bit. My punishment for my violence tinged voyeurism was having to inspect the new work as well.
So watching the sparking woman was a lot like that. Seeing her dance and striking the grinding wheel on the tiny strips of metal to generate the sparks, and knowing that she could hurt herself severely with a simple wrong move of a half inch or so was what fascinated me. And she was fit . . .
The other question I've been asked a lot here rather surprises me: How much longer do they give you to live?
Since I have nothing of huge value to leave anybody other than a huge movie collection and a beautiful puppy this is rather startling.
Since other doc's had given me erroneous time lines I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. I called the doctor who was happy to discuss this morbidity with me. I knew it was going to go well when the conversation started off with something like, "Frankly, I can't quite accept the fact that you're alive right now!"
The leukemia put my body through a serious beating, the diabetes is a progressive disease that just wears you down. The techniques used in Canada are different then the preferred method in America but I have to live with it. They have no idea how I managed to survive the second heart attack, the one intentionally induced by the Canadian Government which they refused to treat. They said the damage caused by that heart attack was more severe than the first one.
But I am alive and the damage to my heart, while serious is nowhere near as bad as it should be or as bad as the scarring indicates it should be, I guess.
There's no real answer to how long I can live. If I stay on my diets pretty well and keep swallowing
Click images for desktop size: "Head Hunter" by NFL Films the handfuls of pills they believe I can return my heart to about 98% (Before the second heart attack it was believed I could get it back to 100%)
In other words I stand a good chance to make it into my 60's . . . maybe.
All I can guarantee is that I will live at least one more day than my puppy. After this episode I will not ever let us be separated again.

Even with the job and my constant exhausted (but not fatigued) state I can still follow football. I'm surprised and concerned that Pete Carroll has named Matt Barkley the starter. Matt has the chance to be one of the greatest QB's of all time but his senior season in Orange County was solid but far from spectacular. In practice he's looked brilliant and incredibly young by turns.
I'd just feel more comfortable with the equally talented Aaron Corp playing QB against Ohio State. Next week San Jose State is just a tune up game. A game I'm irked USC is playing. San Jose State has a talented Div 1A defense. Its quick enough to give Barkley a look and some problems. I hope Corp gets some time in because I still think Corp is the key to a successful season.
These 12 games a year - 12 days that these kids have spent a life time getting ready to play are too important for experiments.

I've got another year to start. I think I get to say when that year starts. It didn't start today. Today was as disappointing as Obama's plan for health care reform. It is certainly not going to start until I can start to use my right arm again, I've got my puppy beside me telling me doggish jokes, and I can get up in the middle of the night and talk to my friend. Interestingly I've compensated for the arm so well that I have either deceived everyone that my arm is fine or else everyone around me is too self obsessed to notice . . . I don't know how to compensate for the lack of puppy or lack of friend.