Sensible Benchmarks

Does it make sense to measure the expanse of my remaining work years against a retirement system that won't be there by the time I'm eligible?

Some Perches Are Better Than Others

Apparently, some cats think that "on top of the breadmaker, on the kitchen-counter" is a good place to perch. I guess when trying to survey the kitchen for scurrying mice, particularly when a favored scurry-path is behind the dryer on which the breadmaker sits, it makes sense. Still... The prospect of the cats shedding into the heat-vents of the breadmaker (and the likely smell it will make the next time it's used) is less than appetizing.

Iconic Jerseys?

So, I'm watching the Flyers play the Tampa Bay Lightning. Unfortunately, NHL Center Ice had picked the Tampa coverage to carry (it seems the Philly coverage is rarely chosen - I can only guess that CSN Philly charges more for their feed than most other broadcasters).

Next year, Tampa is going to be giving season ticket holders RFID-equipped jerseys. The jerseys will act as the wearers' tickets and also be tied to their credit cards (or whatever) so that everything in the arena can be taken car of with a simple swipe over the RFID's location. Kind of neat but also rather creepy.

Creepiness aside, the thing that stuck out in this whole segment was how jazzed the ownership was about the new jersey design for next year. To me it looked like rubbish, but, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," I guess. At any rate, the people responsible for this design were going on and on about how they were trying to achieve an "iconic design" in the class of the New York Yankees' pinstripes. All I could think was, "what a freaking joke... You're a hockey team in TAMPA: how the hell do you think you're EVER going to be as iconic as a team like the Yankees?" I mean, yeah, great thing to strive for, but, c'mon. It strikes me as one of those "world famous in Poland" kind of deals.

Thanks, Winter

I'm one of those people that keeps a close eye on my vehicles' average gas consumption rates. According to my fuel logbooks, my wife's SUV has gotten around 20.2 MPG over the last two-plus years; my sedan has gotten 24.7.

This past week, the DC area was visited by a fast-falling snowstorm that hit right around rush-hour (and, "rush-hour", in the DC area, is normally a four hour window in the morning and evening). When I go to my regular office, it's about a 19-mile commute. When traffic's sane, it's about a 35-minute trip. Wednesday, that same trip took me over 5.5 hours to complete. Normally, I get about 22MPG on that 19-mile trip when taking my wife's SUV to/from work. In addition to the five-hour snow-penalty, there was a serious MPG penalty: I got around 11.2MPG from the tank. Given that I'd already made the 22MPG morning run to get to the office, it means I probably got rather less than 11.2MPG on the trip home.

Argh. I hate driving in the DC-area during bad weather.

Assault With a Breadly-Weapon

My wife, Donna, loves to bake. She bakes cakes. She bakes cookies. She bakes pies ...She bakes all sorts of things. Most of all, she bakes all sorts of breads (we haven't bought bread from the store in years). 

Recently, she'd made a couple of baguettes from which to make garlic-bread to go with a pasta dinner she'd prepared. Normally, for just the two of us, we eat maybe half a baguette. The dogs normally get the other half chopped up in their next meal.

Normally, a batch of the baguette dough makes two loaves - one of which she bakes off, immediately, the other of which she wraps up and freezes. This time, however, she baked up both loaves. The second, unused loaf, she apparently lost track of, as I found it, a few days later, buried on one of the kitchen counters. Left to sit exposed to the air, it had hardened up quite a bit. I chose to alert her of my find by tapping her on the head with it. I don't think it would have been any more effective had it had "Louisville" branded into the side of it. She was not pleased, but I was rather amused by it.

Milestones of Aging

I dunno why, but, tonight, it suddenly occurred to me, "people born in 1990 will be legal to drink this year". It was a realization that made me feel old. It made me feel old, in part, because it means that, in just shy of one year, there will be kids in the US taking their first legal drinks who weren't even born, yet, when I took my first legal drink.

There's a lot of commonly recognized age milestones in life. For someone born in the US, those are typically things like:

• Turning 16 and being allowed to drive (though, it seems that's getting delayed in some states)
• Turning 18 and being allowed to vote, sign contracts, be tried as an adult (without special legal considerations)
• Turning 21 and being allowed to drink
• Turning 25 and being able to rent a car by yourself (and, in many cases starting on the downhill curve of auto insurance rates)
• Turning 30 ...because you're now "over the hill"
• Turning 55 and, at least according to AARP, joining the ranks of "senior citizens"
• Turning whatever age you're eligible to start receiving Social Security

In addition to these, there are also other less well recognized milestones. These are the kinds of milestones that make you say, "fuck: I'm getting old".

• The first time you open up a Playboy and realize, "I'm older than the Playmate of the Month".
• Remembering sneaking your dad's porn mags when you were a kid looking for porn
• When you get hit by a driver who wasn't even born when you first got your drivers license.
• Looking around, at a concert or nightclub, and being astonished at the younger elements of the crowd being old enough to drink
• Realizing that the T-shirt you're wearing is older than some of the adults in the room
• Having the original versions of several of the T-shirt being hawked by Hot Topic (et. al.)
• Watching a sporting event where the teams are wearing their "throwback" uniforms and remembering when those were the uniforms were current
• Realizing that the "underground" music you love(d) is now twenty or more years old
• Realizing that the band Tshirt some kid is wearing was from a band who's lead-singer (etc.) died before that kid was even born.
• Realizing that so many of the things that are "retro-cool" were things you grew up with or came of age with.
• When your first relative dies of natural causes
• When your first parent dies of natural causes
• When your first peer dies of natural causes
• Realizing that you've been working for a living for nearly two decades ...and that you still have two (or more) decades yet left to work.

There's tons more. It seems I discover more and more of them each day. And, for better or worse, there's many I won't get to experience (e.g., unlike my mother, I'll never have the sobering realization of having a child who's 30, or 40 or has just reached retirement-age).

Maybe GV transcription would improve if they let us submit vmails with corrected transcriptions?

So, I use Google Voice as a call-direction and answering service. When calls go to voicemail, they get transcribed. Once transcribed, I get an email with the transcription and a link to the  recording of the call. Today, I got an email with the following transcription.

Hey Tom, It's Lauren. Mike. Share want to be there, call me. Sometimes Florida. I completely forgot. So I wasn't sure what that was about anyway, gimme a call back when you get a chance. X X XX X:XX XX. Thanks. Bye. 

Now, if the above doesn't make a lot of sense, it's because it's only slightly close to the audio content of the message. Basically, it's close enough that I can sorta understand how it might be transcribed that way (I can only assume GV's transcription software doesn't have good lexical/contextual engines).

When you get the transcription, there's usually two little buttons at the end asking you to rate whether it was useful or not. If you select the "not" option, they ask if you're willing to submit it to help them improve their service. Oddly, there's not the option for you to submit your own transcription. So, if you do submit it, it's completely a matter of faith that it will be constructively used - that, if someone else actually does listen to it, they'll hear it the same way you did.

Ugh: not a perfect process.

I Smell Like a Coffee Shop in Autumn

During hockey season, my wife and I go up to Philadelphia about twice a month to catch Flyers games. Each trip is sort of a ritual for us. We drive up early so that we can make several stops while in Philadelphia - some combination of stops: to get a cheesesteak (of the Geno's/Pat's/Jim's troika, I prefer Jim's); to stop at the Italian market for meats or kitchen appliances; to get gelato; to get pastries; or, to get soaps.

When we get soaps, it's from Duross and Langel. I usually like to get mint or citrus soaps. However, I also sometimes pick up some random "flavor". Apparently, on the last visit, I must have picked up a bar of pumpkin-spice soap. Now, I don't specifically remember having bought this pumpkin-spice soap. Having used it, this morning, I now feel like Starbucks smells in October. It's not horrible, just unsettling.

Turn of Fortune

Wednesday night, the DC area received a sudden snow of 5". This snowfall happened right at rush hour, paralyzing the area. My 20mi commute, which, most evenings, takes about 35 minutes, instead, took over 335 minutes. And, when I came home, I came home to a dark house - the snow-covered trees having taken down the lines on my block and my electricity with it.

The power was off all that evening, the next day and into this evening. I didn't want to spend another night at home, in the cold and dark. I wasn't sleepy, so I didn't want to pack it in, early. So, what to do? Donna and I decided to get out of the house and see a movie. We left the cold, dark house to go see Black Swan.

When we returned, we came back to a warm, lit house. The power had been restored in our absence. The heater had kicked on and warmed the house. Every light attached to a turned on switch was lit.

Infinitely Re-Watchable Movies

There are many great movies out there and there are many, many awful movies out there. However, it seems that, in terms of ability to be watched, over and over, without becoming tired of it, a movie has to have some other quality to it that usually puts it closer to the awful end of the spectrum than the great end of the spectrum.

One of the earliest movies I recall attaining that status of infinitely repeatably-watchable was The Princess Bride. It was just one of those movies you could pop in the VCR (or stumble upon while flipping through the TV channels) and enjoyable watch it, no matter how many times you'd seen it before or at what part of the movie you started watching it. It's a pretty good movie, but it would probably never be considered a "great movie" (no one's ever gonna lump it in the same category as The Godfather).

The next movie I found that fell into this "infinitely repeatably-watchable" category is the movie The Fifth Element. It most definitely is not a great movie. Its plot and story are absurd. Its characters are barely two-dimensional, let alone having a quality that approaches "depth" - which, given the cast, is probably to be expected. The special effects are merely 'ok'. In sum, there's little about the movie that makes it "stand out". Overall, the movie is almost a pure style-piece. However, at the end of the day, it's the kind of movie that makes no pretensions about what it is, nor does it meander from trying to be one kind of movie or another. It's almost fascinating in just how "empty" it is. I don't know what it is that does it, but it's the kind of movie I can sit down and watch, over and over, and I can do so, no matter my mood or whether I've watched from the beginning or some mid-point.

Reserved Terms?

It seems that, somewhere along the lines of my cultural acclimation, I have come to associate certain expectations with the term "custom". And, while I realize, at a rational level, that "custom" is a fairly generic term, I can't help but think of the various TV shows centered on "custom choppers", "custom hotrods" and the like.

Today, I got a sandwich from the Wholefoods sandwich counter. I got one of their daily specials. However, Wholefoods frequently uses red onions, which I have an allergy to, on their sandwiches. Indeed, such was the case for the specialty sandwich I wanted to order today. Thus, I asked the sandwich-maker to substitute raw white onions for the grilled red onions that are part of the sandwich's normal recipe. Now, I don't know whether it was this substitution that warranted it or that it was a daily special, but, the price label on my sandwich's bag said, "custom sandwich". Seeing that label almost immediately prompted me to wonder if I should expect the sandwich in the bag to have some kind of flame paintjob or ridiculous amounts of chrome.

Oooo! Sparkly

With NewDawg, when there's arguments, there's now two sets of scary white teeth flashing and clicking:

Side Effects

Over my life, I've been on a number of medications - primarily for my epilepsy. I've also been on medications for arthritis, migraines, depression and high blood pressure. Each has its upsides and down sides.

The arthritis medications tend to jack with my blood pressure. It was this side-effect that made it so I had to go on high blood pressure medications earlier than genetics might have otherwise required. Towards the end, the arthritis medications were combining with my epilepsy meds to fuck with my liver. Fortunately, dietary changes seems to have removed the need for a daily regimen of arthritis medications.

I've only really been on a couple blood pressure medications. I had to try three or four to find ones that were both effective and didn't render me chronically sleepy. Found that medication at least five years ago and have been on it since then. Other than controlling my blood pressure, it doesn't seem to have any side effects (obviously, if it does, I'm not noticing them or they'll be something that slowly contributes to my ultimate demise).

Fortunately, the migraine medications I've been on have been allocated "as-needed". That is, I only need to take them when I feel a migraine coming on or am in the undeniable midst of a migraine. I generally only seem to have medication-requiring migraines a couple times a year. So, while they may have side effects, the brevity of application means that I don't really notice them compared to the relief I get from the migraine pain.

I've had a life-long problem with depression. For the most part, it's manageable. However, there've been times where it genuinely interfered with my life. Most frequently, it's made me very withdrawn. Sometimes, it's gotten to the point of simply wanting to be "done" with everything. It's made it both so that I've either slept all the time or slept not at all. Once, in the latter-half of my mid-20s, I tried tackling the problem with medication. I tried a number of different medications. Most of them, their side-effects outweighed any curative or even palliative value. The only one that seemed to have more positive effects, for me, than negative effects was Paxil. It ended up making me feel pretty good: got me out of my hole and got me back to wanting to be involved with people and life.

Unfortunately, getting out of the hole and back into life is that sex is part of a normal life. And, while Paxil didn't curb desire or ability to act on desire, it did make it so that sexual engagement was ultimately an exercise in frustration. Nothing like being interest and able to perform but not being able to "achieve satisfaction". Ultimately, it was this lack of "satisfaction" that caused me to quit the medication. Fortunately, it seemed to have reset my body's chemistry such that I could get along without it and its interfering effects.

Epilepsy has been my biggest problem. Unlike the anti-depression meds, where I could simply discontinue use when they became problematic, my only choice with epilepsy medications has been "try another." Without the epilepsy meds, my seizures come back (and, with some of them, they still do, any way).

Over the years, I've been on: Dilantin, Depakote, Topamax, Lamictal and Keppra.

• From age 13 - when I had my first seizure and was diagnosed - to age twenty, I was on Dilantin. Over the time I was on the medication, my body became more and more sensitive to it and it became less and less effective at controlling my seizures. While I've never had a good body self-image, the Dilantin really skewed it: the Dilantin caused me to become skeletally thin, but I still saw myself as being rather overweight. At the same time, toxic episodes with it caused me to display other, severely distorted thinking patterns that bordered on psychosis. During high school, my parents got called in by teachers who were concerned that I was having a drug-abuse problem. It was only after a final cluster of seizures that we sought out a better agent for control.
• From age 20 to age thirty-seven, I was on Depakote. My neurologist, at the time, chose it because, in addition to being an anti-epileptic, it was known to help patients with depression disorders and migraines - both problems I've had, lifelong. Overall, it worked rather well at controlling my seizures, reduced the frequency (though not the severity) of migraines and reduced most of my depression episodes. Pluse, it didn't seem to have overtly-negative mental effects. Yeah, I gained sixty pounds in my first five years, but my seizures were under control and I wasn't psycho like I was on Dilantin. In retrospect, however, I realized that it had turned me into a zombie. Much of my reckless behavior of my twenties was likely attempts at feeling something from life. Eventually, I gave up much of that reckless behavior, mostly due to it not having any real emotive reward.
• Starting the summer of my 37th year, I switched to Topamax. The Depakote had started to show severe effects on my liver. While I was no longer gaining weight on the Depakote, I wasn't losing any, either. So, my neurologist decided to try me on Topamax since a common side-effect was weight loss. This drug lasted around a year. In that year, I dropped fifty pounds. Ultimately, I ended up in the hospital, twice, with pancreatitis caused by the Topamax. It had also turned me into a nervous, anxiety-ridden wreck. But, at least I was at something approaching a healthy weight.
• Starting in early fall of my 38th year, my neurologist tried switching me to Lamictal. This medicine lasted me a little less than a year before it became clear that it wasn't the medication for me. Most of my Depakote weight returned and, after nine months on it, I had my first seizure in nearly 20 years.
• Now, I'm on Keppra. It's been an interesting ride. It seems to control my seizures. Unfortunately, if I don't boost my intake of vitabmin B⁶, I suffer from "kepprage". My depression symptoms are more frequent and deeper than they've been since I'd initially switched to Depakote. I'm also a bit disconnected from my life - though I don't know if that's the medication or the lack of depression-control. Still, it's better than the chronic anxiety attacks of Topamax or psychosis of Dilantin. The other "fun" thing about it is the chronic paresthesia. This symptom varies from being barely noticeable to feeling as though I'm wearing a full-body rubber-suit.The morning tooth-brushing ritual often feels like I'm brushing someone else's teeth. Sex feels like I'm using someone else's dick to fuck with. This latter part is manageable if I'm not having to wear condoms, but the deadening effects of condoms on top of the paresthesia makes condom-requiring sex-acts pretty much pointless. Increasing my vitamin E intake seems to help the paresthesia, but only if I'm taking high doses (1000 IU or higher daily supplements). Even at high doses, it only makes it so that I only notice it when having sex.

I'm now 40 years old (and turn 41, tomorrow). I need to decide whether the chronic lack of sexual satisfaction is something I want to continue living with or not. I mean, at forty, should I really care that sex, pretty much, sucks? I don't even know that changing to another medication is going to improve things. I mean, even if the paresthesia went away, the new medication might cause some other side effect that would make sex either a non-starter or pointless/joyless to engage in. Maybe I should just figure "I'm too old for sex" and move on?

Kinect: One Man's (First) Experience

A long-time friend of mine gave me a Kinect controller for my Xbox as a late Christmas/early birthday present. I didn't get a chance to start playing with it the first day. I guess I have to turn my geek-card in, since I didn't drop my "life" to start messing with it. Then again, having a "life" probably made me forfeit my geek-card long ago.

At any rate, it didn't languish too long - only about thirty-six hours. I couldn't get to it yesterday, when I got home from work, because I was beat and we were going out for the evening, later. I only got chance enough to take it out of its shipping box and place the whole Kinect package/box in my television case before I staggered upstairs for a several-hour nap. After the nap, we got ready to go out, then were gone until around 03:00. I had a Flyers game in Philly that I needed to head out of town for, first thing in the morning, so, I went up to our iceox bedroom and sacked out. After my alarm went off, I staggered downstairs and looked at the still sealed carton. It glared at me as I readied myself for the day's travel and mocked me as I headed out the door. It was still looming in its box when I returned.

Finally, around 22:00, after playing with the pups upon returning home, I set about getting the device set up. I gotta admit, it's a bit nifty. Being able to control my system with my voice and waves of my hands gives kind of a Jedi feeling.That said, it's still very much a new product. It shows signs of being rather cool, but still lacks a lot.

It comes with a video chat functionality. Unfortunately, since it doesn't (yet?) link to services like Skype, you can only video chat with other Kinect owners. There aren't a lot of them right now - at least, not in my circle of friends. So, this isn't likely to be a useful feature any time soon.

While the device is pretty good at figuring out that there's more than one person in the room, it seems to be confused by pets. In fairness, pets are confused by interactions with the Kinect. My cats seem convinced that my waving about is an invitation to them to come be petted. Cats suddenly appearing in what the Kinect sees as control points (my hands) causes the Kinect to sort of lose track of things.

The Kinect also offers voice-control of Xbox functions. Unfortunately, that control isn't well-integrated into the Xbox modules I like to use. Probably doesn't help that the initial Kinect code release doesn't seem to support much more than the most rudimentary of commands. Right now, it's kind of like the dumbest pet you've ever owned or encountered, only dumber. If it were a pet, you'd have to put a hockey helmet on it.Hopefully, as the product matures and code updates come out, it will receive a larger repertoire of spoken commands. For now, the appeal of the voice commands wears off quickly.

At any rate, I ran it through its setup paces and even played some of the games that the device came with. The games are reminiscent of the Wii Fit stuff, without the worry that you'll destroy a controller-board. The Kinect wants a fair amount of motion-space. My living room is barely big enough. I had to move our ottoman out of the way to complete the setup (otherwise, it would eclipse the Kinect's view of my lower legs, causing the Kinect to render my body-position as kneeling in mid-air). While our living room isn't huge, it isn't as small or furniture-restricted as that of many of my friends. So, bear your gaming area's geometry in mind when considering the purchase.

After playing with it a bit, it started to creep me out, a bit. The Kinect has glowing red and green LEDs on the front. When it's active, it puts a little thumbnail of what it "sees" in a little window on your screen. Combine the cold, dead look of the LEDs and the realization that you're being watched, heard and recognized, and you get kind of a 1984/2001 feeling. I gotta think that, as/if these things proliferate, advertisers and hackers alike will want to make use of the Kinects' capabilities. Yeah, you get a nifty gaming interface, but, you realize that you're starting to sell yet another part of your life to "the machine". While the Wii only has a motion sensor bar, the Kinect has eyes and ears and, for the sake of entertainment, you're potentially making yourself observable, each and every time you turn it on.

Oh well...

At any rate, if they ever fully realize the gaming potential and mature the gesture and voice interfaces, it should be pretty cool (imagine in-game fights if you're playing NHL 2K games over Xbox Live!). If Microsoft gets smart and partners with Skype (and/or others), it will be a nifty communication device to keep in touch with far-flung friends and family. For now, it's going to be a "yay, I have one" affair, but will probably only be used, briefly, each time there's a new code update (i.e., to see "what can it do, now?"). Guess I'll also have to test it with each new game I get to see what it's useful for. I'm guessing for most legacy games, it will simply remove the need to have my headset when I want to trash-talk during online gaming (and, I'll have to figure out how to mute that in unobvious ways).

 

Wonder-Inducing Team

One wonders what the Flyers' record might be like if they had a competent power play.

One wonders what the Flyers' record might be like if they could actually hold onto a 2+ goal lead.

One wonders what the Flyers' record might be like if they consistently played an entire sixty, contiguous minutes of hockey.

Just Shoot Me

I know I'm not the only person to ever think or utter the words, "just shoot me." I mean, there even used to be a crappy sitcom by that name.

The past couple weeks, I've been working on a project at work that has been an exercise in nearly endless frustration. Today, when it finally looked like things might be turning a corner, what was around the corner turned out to be a yawning, spike-filled chasm.

For better or worse, where I work comes with very formidably-armed guards. Thus, if I ever really wanted to seek permanent relief from my frustrations, I could probably figure out a way to get myself fatally lit-up. I'd just need to figure out who the most trigger-happy guard was and work on him/her.

Hmm... Probably an exclusion in my various insurance policies for that, somehow.

Timeliness

The problem with wisdom and perspective is that they are too often gained well after it's too late to apply them to yourself. Worse, those who you'd try to impart that knowledge to are never in a place where they will want to learn from it.

Old Man of the Net

Ok, I realize that there's plenty of people out there who've been on the Internet longer than me. I mean, I really only started using it in 1989.

I'd hit an article through StumleUpon about the 100 oldest domains on the Internet. The first .com domains were registered in 1985. I've had my domain, xanthia.com, for quite a while, but couldn't remember exactly when I'd registered it. So, I hit up `whois`, right quick:

Domain Name: XANTHIA.COM
[...]
Updated Date: 11-sep-2009
Creation Date: 27-sep-1995
Expiration Date: 26-sep-2014

I set up my current, primary email address, back when I registered my domain. So, I've had the same primary email address since 1995 (over 15 years, now!) and just ten years less than the oldest .com domain names have existed.

As a side note, having an email address, that long, means that your address is in just about every spam-bot/address-harvester's email list. All I can say is, "thank god for anti-spam software".

Smell vs. Taste

Yesterday's pork vindaloo was awesome. Unfortunately, thirty hours later and the house still kinda smells like rancid swack. Oh well. The price you pay for good food.

Where'd They Go

Either Donna didn't make enough eclairs or she gave too many away. Dammit, those were good.

Argh.