The big scare, or Heck Yeah, God Answers Prayers!

I spent a decent amount of money on some Flexon eye glasses frames, that were billed as "unbreakable". Well, it turns out that they're not unbreakable. I had my arm up on the armrest of The World's Worst Couch, and when I moved my hand, I hit the temple or arm of my glasses. Near as I can tell, that's all that happened, except what came of that was my glasses breaking at the bridge. One minute I had a pair of glasses, the next minute, I had left and right monocular lenses.

Since that was both sucktastic and unacceptable, I went to the Vision Center and made an appointment for an eye exam. I found out once again that I have an unusual prescription, in that my astigmatism, which usually runs up and down or side to side, runs at an angle, and a different angle on both eyes. When I had a root canal last year, I found out that the root of that tooth was unusual, too, and only .5% of the people in the world have that. I don't know what that means, other than that all this stuff probably costs me more in the long run.

Upon getting my eye exam, complete with dilating my eyes and making the whole world blurry, I was informed by my new optometrist that I potentially had a retinal detachment. That was not welcomed news. Knowing how expensive that is, and how crappy my insurance is, I was dreading that being the case.

So, I called my brother back from his Birthday message for me, and told him what the what's up was. He promised to pray about it, and I certainly was. I know it sounds like I was jobbin' the prayers, but that's not the case. I have always been a believer in prayer, as I've seen God come through for me and for others time and time again.

Today was no exception to that rule. I met with an excellent eye surgeon, who it turns out is also into shooting and hunting. He took some really cool photos of the inside of my eye-I'm always fascinated by those kinds of things-and took a look in there with some really blinding white light. In the end, he informed me that I would be needing surgery, but not for the detached retina that I feared. I do have a cataract, and it's growing, so it's gonna have to be zapped. But, it doesn't have to be done right away, which means I have some time to get some funds together (of note, I do take donations at hajipaypal@yahoo.com).

How I'm gonna get that deductible rounded up is another question altogether, but at least its not a detached retina! I may still go for the pirate eye patch. God answers prayer.

Wisdom

Saw this posted on my forum and had to save it:

"It reminds me of the phrase 'don't confuse enthusiasm with capability'."

Arthur Blank a racist!??!

Arthur Blank on Monday Night Football made the comment that if Mike Vick eats "fried chicken and french fries" in prison, he won't be in shape to come back and play foo'ball. Apparently, Arthur Blank is a racist for picking fried chicken and fries as the bad-for-you foods that Mike Vick can eat.

Hey, America! I gots news for your dumb asses! White folk like some KFC, too! I bet if you wait long enough, you could see some Crackahs, some Messicans, and some Ornamentals at KFC, gettin' a bucket and fries. This is a non-story. Leave Arthur Blank alone. He didn't do anything wrong. If this is enough to get your race baiting radar tweaked, you are a damn fool and need to get a thicker skin, and grow the hell up.

Divided We Fail...Fails.

While watching some good ol' American foo'bah yesterday, I saw a commercial that the AARP is paying for. I have no problem with the AARP, except when they get into issues that are outside their game, like gun control. Now, this commercial doesn't really fall outside their purpose, as its all about health care. What I'm trying to figger out, though, is who thought this particular commercial was a good idea.

The commercial has a bunch of alleged humans ostensibly asking our politicians, "Don't say it just to get votes". "Don't tell us something you're not going to do". "Don't lie to us just to get votes". Honorable ideas, right? In general, yeah they are. Naive as can be, but honorable. The problem is, in their zeal to get their political ad on the air to have politicians always tell the truth and only do things that they say they're gonna do, they made one major, major error. They guarranteed that no politician was going to listen to the add, pay any attention to it, or have it impact them in any way: all of the "actors" in this commerical are kids. Not a one of them can vote.

I understand the artificial heartstring factor attendant with the use of kids. If I hear "if it saves just one child's life, it'll be worth it", I'm gonna projectile vomit for record distance. I'm even making sure I don't eat too much rough stuff, like pepperoni, to be sure I set the mark and don't tear my throat up too much in the effort. Why is it nobody ever bothers to ask what'll happen if the proposal in question happens to cost a kid's life at some point? Things that make ya go "hmmmmmm". Sorry, Arsenio; I know you haven't worked in a long time, but I'm not paying ya for that.

The thing is, health care isn't inexpensive. The whole process is costly. Look at the technology involved. None of it is cheap. Equipment costs a ton of money. Urban and suburban real estate where hospitals are located costs a ton of money. Medical fraud costs a ton of money. What are we gonna do, push the doctor button on the educational CNC machine and pop 'em out en masse? Education costs a ton of money. I know that, and I'm not even a medical student. If my degree is costing me this much money, a doctorate in doctoring will, by simple volume of required courses, cost more.

Hey! Let's get the government to pay for it! Yeah! They have money! We'll just have them pick up the bill! What a great idea!! Uh...Captain MENSA, I have some news for you: the gummint doesn't make money. They have no industry that generates capital. In fact, everything they do costs money. So where is the cash for health care coming from?

Go get your last pay stub. Got it yet? Well, get it. I'll wait. OK, you're looking at your stub. See that heading under "deductions"? Yeah, that's your money getting sent elsewhere. That FICA dude that's getting a nice fat chunk of your check-the largest single deduction out of that gross amount-goes to the gummint. Do you really want them to make that number even larger? Maybe double it? "If it leads to quality health care, it'll be worth it". It won't. How long do we have to allow the gummint to prove that they're not the best mechanism for creating, administrating, and handling buraucracies? If you think they'll do medical care any different from Social Security or any other branch of the gummint, you're out of your damn mind. It'll be every bit as inefficient as any other branch of the gummint. They are simply not the best way to get it done. Never have been, never will be, simply cannot be.

Do I think medical care is horrendously expensive? Of course I do. Would I like to see it cost less? Of course I would. However, I'm not willing to get a second rate doctor to do that, when my life is what we're talking about. There's very little that can be done to make it less expensive to field a quality doctor. It costs what it costs, and I'm not willing to sacrifice my care to a second tier doctor that got his doctorate in some third world country.

If socialized medicine, such as it is in England, Canada, and other places around the world, is so freakin' great, why is it that most of the world's leaders come here to the US to be treated, rather than dealing with the systems in their countries? Ain't for no reason. Think about it rationally a minute and maybe you'll get it.

Cingular is offensive

I have yet another rant. Cingular has started running this stupid commercial for their MP3 phones. Now, a phone that plays MP3's is kinda cool. The technology is pretty amazing and that somebody decided the world should revolve around your phone is visionary.

The problem is that Cingular apparently will allow anyone to get one of their phones. They have two college dudes who clearly use too much cannabis playing one of the greatest rock tracks of all time. Rock the Casbah is the best song on a very good record. Combat Rock is a great record from first track to last. The song is a seminal piece of music. These two pot heads should be old that they must have heard the song for years.

No, you morons. Joe's not singing "Stock the Cat Box." Why would you think that? Does that fit in at all with any of the lyrics? I know most popular music doesn't always make much sense, but Rock the Casbah does. They're pretty easy to hear. They're reasonably clear, for a rock song. That's what's so retarded. They're screwing up lyrics that most people in their age group know, understand, and can speak coherently about. I was going to say "eloquently", but further reflection prompted me to correct the error of my ways.

Ever wonder how they could get that song so, so wrong...when its on their phone? Didn't they have to download it? Didn't they have to have a source for it? Wouldn't that mean it'd be damn near impossible to get the song to the phone without knowing what its called? How could you download a song without having its title? Since the title is the same as the words in the chorus, it would take a heck of large bong load to screw that one up. And these idiots were getting in a car. They're clearly too messed up to drive. Those fools will kill someone.

Thanks for letting another college educated, talentless hack choose your ad campaign. Think about this: that was probably the best idea they had. Consider what might have been.

writer's block

I spend a lot of time on the Intarweb. I'm a moderator on a couple forums, and admin on a few more. I have thousands of posts...come to think of it, closer to ten thousand and very likely far more than that...on various forums on various subjects. I have no problem commenting on stuff other poeple post. F'rinstance, my bro Josh is a bloggin' fool. He's got lots to post about, and half the time I seem to write these long rants in reply to his posts. By the time I'm done, I thinkin' that "I should have posted that here". Yet I am in the throes of writer's block.

The key is, I'm sure, to start writing down some topics. I have them pass through my head from time to time, but they're like Spongebob chasing the jellyfish: I don't keep them very long at all. Sort of like when you see someone you know at a stoplight, but don't remember to honk because you didn't recognize them in time. Even better: being that person who comes up with the perfect come back...the day after they needed it. I don't have that problem, but that's not the same as writer's block.

I think part of this all stems from some pot smokin' idiot posting a big ol' long rambling trainwreck of a rant on the MySpace account of the person I commented on earlier. That person has since made their account "private", which means you have to be let in as a "friend" to view it. Since I'm not that person's friend, half my entertainment for the week has gone out the window.

I'll see what I can do this weekend. I gotta go get some sleep so my next treatise isn't about how I spend my whole weekend with a cold kickin' my butt.