Christ!

Holy shit! Viva paper towels are amazing!
They're like a cloth/paper hybrid!
http://www.vivatowels.com/
The future is amazing!

R.I.P. Ted Kennedy

In 1951 it was he who charged us - long before space travel was a daily burden - to do the impossible.

"We should commit ourselves, before this day is out, to landing a man on the Earth and returning him safely to the Moon."

Never happened.

At least I've got everything but my health?

Wife, family, job, cat, house, car, gizmos.
That's all cool.
Lacking oxygen still - working on that.
...and I'm about a billion pounds overweight.
That's gonna be a tough one.
In the meantime I'll be disoriented and exhausted beyond reason except for about two hours a day and excruciatingly crushed by merciless gravity.
More on this developing story later.

Entrepreneur

My business partner Steve is away in the Hamptons looking for venture capital so that we can form the world's first 24-hour pornographic AM radio station.

CPAP machines are a terrible disruptive miracle.

Vertigo

Went to second sleep study Wednesday night, this time I wore positive pressure air mask.
Thursday Midnight: 1st mask + sleeping on back = fail.
2AM: 2nd mask + sleeping on side = success!
Slept until 8:30, awoke exhausted but was WIDE awake in about 10 minutes.
Astonishing sense of jetlag being that awake in the morning. Not normal protocol for me.
2 hours later, intense vertigo. Couldn't walk or move. Went to sleep. As I fell asleep I experienced loud screeching in left ear for split second. Fruitless search for bed parrots. Fell asleep for 1 hour.
Awoke with vertigo, called sleep center. They said "Never heard of such a thing." Escalate to more senior doctor, still "Can't be related to mask. Go to doctor/ER."
6PM, Sue takes me to walk-in clinic. They have no idea, prescribe Dramamine for vertigo.
I take Dramamine, sleep for unknown amount of time, move to living room and sleep there for unknown reason. Lots of nightmares.
Friday AM: Awaken with tingling face and hands, see colorful patterns. Too exhausted for work/driving.
Told employer "Going for full-body wax, big job, overnight stay required on Thursday, need vacation day for recovery." Will need to use sick day - exhaustion, disorientation, mild vertigo, memory loss. Patterns and tingling (hypoxia) subside.
Now writing like Rorschach from Watchmen.
Hope to find better sleep clinic that is familiar with vertigo side-effect, another study with mask.

Innumeracy

$165 million dollars in AIG bonuses is an outrage, no doubt, but let's keep that in perspective.
What about the other $169 BILLION dollars? The media and the government overseers should give that a bit more attention. Here's an 'Outrage Proportion' graph for ya.

That $170 billion dollars could provide $85,000 in expanded unemployment coverage for every one of the two million folks who've lost their jobs since the collapse began.
That's about two years income for the people who have taken the real hit in this crisis.
Once again we see the most basic economic truth in action.
People = Shit

Good time to panic

Rather than waiting for the economic crisis to properly reach out and crush me I have decided to start panicking now.

Alternatives and solutions for a post-economic world:
Crime
Agriculture
Hoarding
Purchasing weapons
Suicide
Migration
Communes

Time to start making choices.

Exploding toilet

I am in receipt of a message from the Town of West Hartford Metropolitan District Commission entitled
Sanitary Sewer Cleaning and TV Inspection

That's right, TV Inspection.
I presume TV is an acronym for something but they never say.
They do go on to recommend that I keep my toilet seat down
"...in the event that a pressure build up causes a spray."

First things first:
Sanitary Sewer?!
I've seen the inner workings of those things and the last adjective I'd throw at them would be "sanitary". Why, my "sanitary sewer" backed up into my basement a few years ago and the whole place was so fresh and clean that I needed to call in people with a van full of powerful equipment to put on environment suits and vacuum away all the springtime fluids and odors. And, let's face it, some springtime solids also.
This is a direct quote from the guys looking INTO my gaping sewer outlet to the street. This was said with a totally straight and flat delivery.
"There are some awful things in there."
These guys do this all day and night for a living for years on end but they saw fit to comment on my unique contribution to the industry. Wow.

Next up:
TV Inspection?!
It's got to stand for something and I apparently am expected to know what it means.
Turd Valve? Toilet Valet? I hope mine is extra nice so it passes inspection.
Maybe they actually mean television. I am prepared to have my television inspected by the state if that's what it will take to defeat terrorism.

Lastly:
Keep my toilet seat down in the event of a SPRAY?!
A spray of what? I bet it's lots of fun, whatever it is!
What is keeping my toilet seat down going to prevent if there should be a pressurized geyser of liquid sewage strong enough to reach from the street all the way into my house and up the pipe? I'm not sure I buy the whole toilet seat defense maneuver in much the same way that I didn't believe that duct tape and plastic was going to keep the atom bombs out of my house in 2001.

I aren't getting enough oxygen for my brains and cells

My sleep study lady calls me up and says I stopped breathing 25 times an hour during my study and my blood oxygen dropped from 95-100 down to 83. For perspective, 85-90 is what you get with serious emphysema. 60 is what you get shortly after you've died!
Turns out that if you have sleep apnea the worst thing to do is take a central nervous system suppressor. Apnea means either my brain is not sending the 'breathe' impulse properly or my fat body is not responding - probably both in my case. Add to that a CNS drug like, oh, say Clonazepam.. or Sertraline.. or Amitryptiline - and you're going to be one drowsy fucking corpse. I take all three of those pills just to be sure I'm nice and calm so I can sleep properly. Follow that? Probably not. See, then I don't breathe and then I can't really sleep and don't get any oxygen so I'm sleepy all the fucking time and extra fatigued and I can't remember anything and I always take my pills before bedtime but the the...
zzzzZZZZZ.
What?!
So I'll go back to the sleep folks and try out a nice breathing apparatus for a night - it'll be like sleeping in scuba gear, that should be a challenge.
So, in review, the answer to "Are you getting enough oxygen?" is no.

National Weather Service issues a warning for Falling Satellite Debris

Daily geek report: I must at least mention the collision of two satellites over Siberia and the insane sounding National Weather Service report out of Kentucky.
This IS for real. The Iridium was a GPS satellite and was operational and has plenty of backups. The Russian satellite was a broken military communications thingy.

"In Soviet Russia satellite launches YOU!"

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE JACKSON KY
1145 PM EST FRI FEB 13 2009

...POSSIBLE SATELLITE DEBRIS FALLING ACROSS THE REGION...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN JACKSON HAS RECEIVED CALLS THIS
EVENING FROM THE PUBLIC CONCERNING POSSIBLE EXPLOSIONS AND...OR
EARTHQUAKES ACROSS THE AREA. THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION HAS
REPORTED TO LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT THAT THESE EVENTS ARE BEING CAUSED
BY FALLING SATELLITE DEBRIS. THESE PIECES OF DEBRIS HAVE BEEN CAUSING
SONIC BOOMS...RESULTING IN THE VIBRATIONS BEING FELT BY SOME
RESIDENTS...AS WELL AS FLASHES OF LIGHT ACROSS THE SKY. THE CLOUD OF
DEBRIS IS LIKELY THE RESULT OF THE RECENT IN ORBIT COLLISION OF TWO
SATELLITES ON TUESDAY...FEBRUARY 10TH WHEN KOSMOS 2251 CRASHED INTO
IRIDIUM 33.

The most obscure joke ever

So I says to the Dean at Housatonic, "Hey, watch out for the Hunley!"

This joke will only work if you are a History major or if you use Google.

Missing windshield washer fluid cap

If whoever stole my windshield washer fluid cap would just return it I promise that I won't be mad.

I fixed my bedroom door hinge and that burner on the stove.

Does that help in any way?

No Mr. Bond, I expect you to sleep

Comfy?

Sleep study

Tonight I sleep in the arms of modern neuroscience.
Plastered with electrodes in a strange room surrounded by cameras, I will try to get a typical night of sleep.
The study starts at 8:30PM, at which time I will be awake.
I will continue to be awake until shortly after 3:00AM.
Soon after, the study ends at what the scientists have determined to be the typical Sunday wake up time - 6:30AM.
At that point I will put on my street clothes and be released into the wild.
There is a great likelihood that I will fall asleep and die in a car crash within 15 minutes.
Within two months the hospital will mail my wife a notice stating that I should lose weight and a bill for $22,000.

Science steps up to the plate

Ice cube spikes verified and explained!
Link to Caltech no less.

Old web posts about ice cube spikes

Back when Cambrian was a real website.

11 years of wacky ice cubes - 1998-2009

2009


1998

W's stupidity is contagious!

I

Barack Hussein Obama

do hold up

and execute

the President of the United States

in the office

with the Constitution

frequently.

Let's do that over.
Faithfully! That's what I meant to say!
I think I flubbed the last part.

2009 checklist

Intelligent U.S. president - go!
Nuclear warhead disposal - negative.
Global population at 2 billion - negative.
Free food for all - negative.
Free water for all - negative.
Free education for all - negative.
Free healthcare for all - negative.
Free housing for all - negative.
100% tidal/wind/solar/geo power - negative.
Electric cars - negative.
Effortless cure for my fatness - negative.
Airships - negative.
Globe-spanning high-speed maglev - negative.
Immersive audio-visual virtual reality - negative.

I'm willing to pay 60% federal tax! Bring it!
Feh. I'll settle for one more year of good health.