doctors are irresponsible! (ocular rosacea)

so according to ophthalmologist jeff stephens, i have ocular rosacea, NOT pink eye.

since i had already been to two doctors, paid for by me thanks to my high deductible health insurance, i was a little weary about hearing a new diagnosis and getting a new $70 prescription and setting up another follow up appointment.

so i asked him if he was sure.

he was pretty condescending, but also pretty sure. he mentioned the degree he has in ophthalmology and the fancy equipment he used to look at my eyeballs, things the other doctors didn't have.

i told him i meant no disrespect.

really, it's the other doctors i disrespect for 'diagnosing' without really knowing for sure and wasting my money. unfortunately, i now have to pay for two wrong diagnosis's and one right one.

michael moore is right.

so yeah, another week with my glasses (jeez) and more eyedrops (jeez) and some stupid warm washcloth treatment (jeez).

thanks heredity!!!

the internet has crashed!

the video says it all!



best part- 'tipton then pulled the computer powercord from the wall and replugged it in (shaking of head)'

harry potter- done

i'm not sure anyone will be interested in this news, but i feel like i need to tell someone. the internet is someone, right?

i finished harry potter last night. i liked it.

i look forward to reading the whole series to my kids some day.

aaron stopped reading at book four, i think. last night he made me tell him everything. it seemed wrong, but i did it. what do you think- vote in my poll------->

church signs- so much fun to violate

if you're like me, you're an atheist and you get annoyed every time you have to drive by a church and read some silly twist of truth on a sign that is designed to get people to go to church and tithe more often (wow, that whopping dose of cynicism even stings me a little).

okay, i'll concede that some of the churches really think they are offering up insightful tidbits of perspective on their signs, though in the world of religion, that's something of an oxymoron.

anyway, because i have this moderately cynical view of the whole church sign thing, i had fun at this site. i went there, and i made my own church sign... =)
















i love the internet.

find a bathroom?

i have some friends who get to travel a lot and this post is for them.

there are many reasons why a person may want to conduct bathroom location/quality research ahead of time, none of which really need to be mentioned specifically.

when i searched in kuwait just out of curiosity, i found myself hoping that not ALL the bathrooms in kuwait were listed. so if any of you readers are from kuwait and know of any other bathrooms than the three listed for the entire country, please add a bathroom to the list. =)

mom: hi

so i was working at my desk yesterday and all of a sudden i got an instant message from "mom". it said, simply, hi.

i just kind of snickered at first. what a great spam ploy... who's attention wouldn't that catch?

as i went to close the window, i scanned the email address just out of curiosity and realized, wait- that is my mom!

my mom totally instant messaged me. she was even throwing down all sorts of shortcuts and abbreviations as we chatted. the inner geek in me was proud, somehow.

i very much organize my life in my head, sorta like a california closet... this thing goes over there and that thing goes over here.

my mom just popped a hole out from her shelf and climbed into a whole bunch of other shelves. it was a good thing, but until she did that, i didn't really realize that i rely on shelves to keep everything organized.

i'm not even sure that makes any sense.

abstractor tv

"turn your tv into art":



seems like it might be a fun idea for a party, eh?

it'd be cool to cut other small windows into the matte board too, so it's not just one long window...

the man is freefalling from outer space

seriously, i watched this after reading the description:
The images in the video are a collage of footage from 1960 about Joseph Kittinger, a man who in that year took a giant helium balloon up to 102,800 feet and then jumped, setting records for highest ascent, highest jump, longest freefall and fastest fall.

and i thought to myself, okay, big deal. he goes way up and then jumps. but holy crap, he didn't just go way up, he went way way way up... then jumped.



sheesh

infectious disease- quarantine

yep, i got pink eye somehow.

since i documented aaron's latest injury so well, it would seem inconsistent if i didn't document my own illness, so here is a picture.



















i really don't think this is all that gross. at least i cleaned out all the goop before i took the picture.

i think it looks cool with all the little squiggly blood veins. for example, what if you just look at this part:






















see? pretty cool, eh?

why am i fascinated by this stuff so much?

taylor falls minnesota

this was our first trip up to taylor falls minnesota.



it was fun to see the area. hard to share it with so many people. the crowd sort of took away from it a little. guess we're just accustomed to the boundary waters where we don't have to share with hardly anyone. =)

stone arch bridge- pics

aaron and i hung out at the bridge for the sunset on saturday.



it was nice.

(cool pictobrowser- thanks lori!)

kitty- sparkle

along time ago, i discovered that little sparkle balls insult my kitty, especially if they are hanging out in plastic bags.

i'm not sure what they say to her, but i think it's something about how she isn't really in charge of the household like she thinks she is, and that she could work a little harder at keeping herself clean, and that real kitties don't need humans to give them their food.

anyway, it really ticks her off, and so this is how she reacts when they insult her:



no matter how often she teaches them a lesson, sparkles always insult her anyway.

consumer breaks up with advertiser

snicker...

The Break Up
Uploaded by geertdesager

having worked in advertising, i always found it interesting the perceptions (and mis perceptions) people have about what goes on day to day inside the industry. this ad plays on that advertising reputation and i think it's pretty funny.

people seem to think that there are a bunch of people sitting in a room somewhere scheming for a way to get all their money!!! tricks and manipulations and downright lies!!! really, advertisers are thinking more about winning awards, i think, than they are about manipulating people.

the saddest part for me was seeing that clients are always looking to sell more of their product and ad agencies are always eager to help. sell more? we can do that.

nevermind the big question- should we sell more?

crazy question, i know. we should always sell more, right?. at any cost, right? make more money for ourselves, right? nevermind the consequences to making more stuff and selling more stuff and polluting the world in the process and using up all our finite resources. we have to sell more stuff!!!

for example, those little plastic crap toys in cereal boxes- who needs that crap? kids don't. land fills don't. let's sell some more cereal by advertising cheap plastic crap. it's working, let's do more of that. how creative can we be at inventing crafty cheap plastic crap, packaged liberally, so we can sell more stuff?

to me, whether advertisers are listening to consumers is an interesting question, but even more interesting is the scary relationship between brands with money and their hired help, who are infinitely capable of thinking up how to sell, but seem unable to ask themselves the bigger questions- is selling at any cost worth it? is the money we're spending on advertising really doing a disservice to our world? if we sell 5 billion more of these widgets, how does that impact the world we live in?

it's like advertisers skip over that thought completely. we could do ads for x company- wouldn't that be sweet?

this is probably why i could never be successful at running an ad agency, but i also think that's a good thing.

oops, when i decided to blog this video, i wasn't expecting all this to pour out. =)

castle draw

i know aaron will enjoy this new game...


you have to draw rocks with your magic wand and drop them on the stick people trying to kill you.

very funny

t-shirt subscription?

so i think this is way cool, especially if you wear a lot of t-shirts and you like to find original trendy designs.

subscribe at this site to receive a t-shirt every six weeks which has been designed based on a current event (which is printed on the inside of the shirt). you get a cool, limited edition, timely shirt design for only $35 (which includes shipping from sweden).

i also like to peruse their gallery of previous shirts...


look for the cool old people. =)

pachelbel canon in d- hilarious vent

as a cellist, this totally resonates for me, but it's funny even if you're not a musician, i think.



when i played that music in high school, i wasn't quite so peeved as this guy cause i saw the eight repeating notes as an easy thing to play while i listened to the fun stuff. i think i felt that even while participating, i got to be a spectator of sorts.

it felt much more like a personal pachelbel attack for rob, i guess. =)

i totally identify with the taco bell joke...

transformers- more than meets the eye

aaron, my friend chris and i saw transformers tonight. ya know, ya kinda go in there expecting it to be cool effects but a bad movie and it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be.

let's just put it this way, it really didn't suck completely like it could have. i really enjoyed it.

aaron always sings the transformer song for me- it's one of my favorite songs he sings.

it's always a bad idea to look these things up, but if you wanna hear the song, go here. aaron's version is much better- you should ask him to sing it for you.

magellan- our platypus

my brother scott sponsored a platypus in Australian in our names.

he is magellan and he is cool and anyone who says different is cruisin' for a bruisin'.

(the little guy is so cute swimming through the water)

=)

stephers

she's a graphic artist now for the army. she rocks!!

i love you stephanie!

bwcaw again!!!

aaron and i are going out into the wilderness again!!!! woohoo!!!

we have invited (and they have accepted) aaron's dad and brother (david and david respectively).

we are going in at homer lake, heading to pipe lake to do some fishing. i feel pretty lucky to be able to go out there twice in one year. =)

august 17- reentry into paradise

find your happy hour

do you ever just need a happy hour, right this moment?!

you're in luck. just visit unthirsty.com and you can get your drink on!

be sure to share your favorite happy hour spot with others!!

reyka vodka site

visit a cyber-iceland at this site for reyka vodka.

it's got a lot of fun, dry humor... for example, when it asks what year you were born, put in a year less than 21 years ago.

make sure you watch tv.

fitting for the fourth

my sister recently graduated as a graphic artist for the army. (congrat's stephers!!)

she called me yesterday, fourth of july, to tell me she is being deployed to iraq.

i know she is excited and so i'm happy for her. seemed like appropriate news for independence day...

sicko

go see the movie. take your friends. tell your neighbors. go see it.