Death Sentence

So, it looks like I'm getting to experience the joy that is having had a pair of similarly-aged dogs reaching their respective end-years. We had/have two dogs, Puckett and Lana. Both were middle-weight bulldog mixes. By their size, their average lifespans should have been about 11-13 years. Both dogs were rescues. Both dogs' estimated birth years were 2000. So, 2010/2011 puts them within the last 1-3 years of their expected lifespans.

This was a picture of them taken in late April of 2009. Here, they're pictured doing one of their favorite things: begging for food from me as I ate dinner on the living room couch. It's a crap picture because I'd snapped it with my cellphone's camera. I was just lucky enough to catch them in a pose that, to me, looks like they were both laughing at something terribly funny.

Laughin' Daigz

When we'd first gotten Lana (pictured at right), she was a black-faced boxer-mix. By the time this picture was taken, most of the black in her face had turned white. We called this "liar-face". Her "liar-face" was a daily reminder that she was in her later years...

This past December, we lost Lana to a combination of lymphosarcoma and spondylosis. Really, it was more the latter than the former as the former was treatable - even if expensive - whereas the pain from the latter made undertaking the former's cure a non-starter. So, we had her put down rather than put her through the chemotherapy experience when she'd only come out the other end of it still in back pain and with less than two statistically-likely years to live. Factor in a lifetime with a heartworm-damaged heart (and the associated expected shortening of natural lifespan), and it made no sense to put her through the chemotherapy.

In recent months, Puckett started to develop skin irritation problems that resulted in hair loss. Initially, lab results had indicated that he had a staph infection in his skin. We initially treated it with basic antibiotics, pending lab results. The initial round was largely ineffective - the lab results eventually told us it was because he'd managed to contract an antibiotic-resistent form of staph. So, we put him on more powerful (and much more expensive) antibiotics for a month. That seemed to get the infection back under control. Shortly after we'd had Lana put down, he managed to scratch himself open. So, we ended up putting him in a "Comfy Cone" (a soft E-collar) to keep him from further harming himself. It had looked like the wound was healing, and then, one day, it was back to looking angry and sore. So, we took him back to the vet so it could be surgically addressed.

While in surgery, they discovered another skin lesion along his abdomen. So, they removed both lesions and biopsied them. It turns out, Puckett's skin problems weren't so much a skin infection as a relatively rare and not chemotherapy-treatable form of lymphosarcoma. Ironically, had he had Lana's variety of lymphosarcoma, there'd be a high likelihood of it being curable with the chemo. I'd have found a way to afford the $3,000-$5,000 they'd quoted for Lana's potential treatment. For better or worse, that's not even an option.

Now, I get to wait for his skin to worsen over the coming months. Normally, they project an average of six months from diagnosis to terminal-condition. They caught his unexpectedly early, so, it's possible we may get a few extra months. Still, it's essentiall a death sentence. On the plus side, he still acts like an adolescent dog and the vet thinks he'll likely to be that way right up to about the time we need to put him down. On the plus side, it means he'll be his Pucketty self for another several months. On the minus side, I'll have to put down a dog that's still full of life but in growing discomfort from the multiplying skin lesions.

Fmeh. Why does it seem like, as you get older, all that's left is to wait for the death of everyone and everything you know, while you feel yourself winding down. Right now, it feels like the world is dying.

I (Still) Love (Some) Spammers

How can you not be amused by a letter from "Peter McWealth" in you inbox?

Dear MD Dept. of Corrections

You do know you're (at minimum) violating the Terms of Service of any such site you get/use login info for, right? And, while the condition of the labor-market makes it so you can ask people to make just about whatever sacrifice you might like, this kind of request is just freaking creepy. Frankly, if you can't see a prospective employee's social media content, it's due to (appropriately-set) privacy settings. It means that your prospective employee isn't careless with their data. Most employers that do social-networking checkups have the decency to limit themselves to checking for the poor judgement of sharing certain kinds of data inappropriately. Your method crosses the line. You deserve the kind of desperate employees that you'd get under this kind of program.

Not sure why I clicked the link (http://is.gd/dzmlj1), but it looks like Bieber's abandoned the emo-mop for the lesbo-look.

I sometimes think that iTunes requires admin-level privs to run so that Apple can force competing OSes to run less securely.

Irresistible

Not a generally a candy fan, but, I have a hard time not powering through a bag of good jelly beans.

Days probably should not begin with a first feeling best verbalized as "fuck, awake again".

Back From Ashes

Today was an abnormally warm, spring-like day. The sun was out and shining. There was a bit of a breeze and the temperature was in the sixties. So, it seemed a good day to start prepping the garden for springtime planting.

Lana had died, this past December, and we'd opted to have her cremated. We've kept her ashes in the box the pet crematorium delivered her to us in. We'd wanted to spread them in our yard and gardens so that she might give us one last gift.

I just got back in from raking the Moo's ashes into the garden. Hopefully, she'll help make it nice and green in the coming years.

Food or Toy?

So, after a nice, spicy dinner, a bit of sweet often goes well. For me, a frequently-preferred sweet is a nice, freshly-peeled navel orange. So, I reached into the fruit bowl and gathered one up. As I started for the living room, I realized, "oh, it's time for my evening meds." Not wanting to carry the orange with me back to the kitchen, I tossed the orange at my couch before heading back to the other end of the house. Well, my aim was a touch high (actually, I was trying not to clobber my cat with it as he lazed away on my couch). The orange hit the top of one of the back-rest pillows and then started rolling downward and off the couch. It tumbled to the floor and rolled its way to a stop along the one wall. Cira had seen all of this transpire and was immediately captivated by it. I was just going to fetch it up after taking my meds, but decided that it wasn't worth risking her trying to treat it like a chew toy in my absence. So, I reached down, plucked it up and tossed - properly, this time - onto the couch where it came to a stop next to my lounging cat.

I'm not sure Cira knows whether this orange is food or a ball: either way, she's not happy it's not in her possession. When I came back from the kitchen, she was sitting in front of the couch, head cocked, staring intently at the mysterious object and whining. The whining was not diminished by my picking it up to peel it.

Once I finished peeling it, I figured, "offer her a piece so she knows it's food and not some toy I'm withholding from her." Turns out that oranges are one more bit of human food she's not sure she wants to accept as beggings.

Stupid daig.

What the Change?

Vending machines fascinate, vex and confound me. For such a ubiquitous and long-lived technology, vending machines never seem to quite work. Soda machines keep the sodas too warm (or, rarely, dispense a can or bottle of solid ice). Sometimes, you press a button and nothing comes out. Other times, you press a button and something other than what the button is labeled with comes out. The "sold out" light for your preferred item shows up with far too great a frequency.

Perhaps the most confounding and annoying is the coin return. Many times no change is returned. Often, incorrect change is returned. And, even when the amount returned is correct, it's never returned in an ideal mixture.

Case in point, today at work. Our soda machine charges $1.35 for a 20oz bottle of soda. Fortunately, it generally accepts dollar bills. Today was one such lucky day. I put my two dollar bills in and hit the button. I heard the familiar churn and thunking-tumble of the soda's fall (it always sounds like it's falling from the TOP of the machine). I waited a few more seconds to hear if it was going to try to give me my change. Eventually, the coin return mechanism began to churn. It sputterd forth my 65-cents change. However, when I looked in the return slot, I found nothing but nickels. Awesome.

Other times, I have the joy of having to get my money back after it tells me that my soda choice is not available (what happened to the individual "out of selection" lights for each button just staying lit?). Given the price of the sodas, it's generally a case of shoving two dollar bills into the machine. However, when you have to get your money back, instead of simply returning the two dollar bills, it spits back an array of coins. Dammit: I don't need money for the laundromat and I don't need money for parking (many locations around here have switched to centralized parking kiosks that take credit cards - at $2/hr for street parking they kind of have to). So, why does my selection-bereft soda machine insist on giving me coins back for my dollars??

Argh...

Interesting Juxtaposition

From CNN.Com front page: "Woman saves hubby from tiger" and "Tiger fined for spitting":

Brand Suicide

For years, I've seen restaurants proudly place "Zagat rated" signs on their doors or in their windows. Granted, I never really bothered to read to see exactly what their ratings were. I've also never bothered to pick up a Zagat guide to decide where to eat (and the presence or absence of "Zagat rated" sign influenced my decision to patronized a restaurant). However, I always sort of assumed that someone, out there, must have found value in the "recognition". I figured that there must be some value to the "Zagat" brand that restaurants bothered to put the signs in their windows.

Recently, however, Zagat gave KFC some kind of "best fried chicken" rating. Now, I have several problems with this. For starters, how can one give out an award for chain food? I mean, chain food, by it's very definition, is the food equivalent of an industrialized or mass-produced eating experience. Second, if you're going to give a rating to a chain food, how the hell can you justify giving it to KFC? I mean, KFC's food is truly mediocre. I've had a lot of fried chicken, over the years. None of the mass-produced stuff out there is as good as any number of mom & pop shops' stuff (I've had some great fried chicken in places like Memphis, Dallas and a number of other southern locales). So, there's an immediate "red-flag" on the validity of the rating. And, even of the chain food places out there, KFC sucks compared to places like Popeyes (seriously: how can you have "the best fried chicken" when you don't offer a spicy fried chicken??).

At the end of the day, when I see KFC flogging that "best fried chicken" Zagat-rating in their commercials, it pretty much renders any other Zagat ratings I see meaningless. It makes me wonder, "how much did KFC pay for that rating". It also makes me wonder how much financial trouble Zagat was in that they would have sold that rating. I mean, I have to believe that somebody at Zagat stopped to think "if we give out this rating, we severely damage our credibility". So, I'd have to assume that they'd want to make such damage worthwhile. I mean, at this point, if I see a restaurant sporting a Zagat sign, I'm gonna have to ask the manager, "so, how's it feel to be in the same class as KFC?"

Ugh.

Why Ask When I Want It Delivered?

I'm not big on the whole giving flowers thing. Least of all am I a believer in flowers for Hallmark holidays like Valentines Day. I mean, I give flowers, but I like them to be spontaneous and unexpected. So, I generally avoid participating in the traditional flower days.

This year, I actually bought Vallentines flowers for my wife. I had them included a card that said, "because, sometimes I do send flowers". I'd ordered the flowers several days ago. Still not sure why, just seemed the thing to do, this year. When I ordered them from the FTD web site, in addition to asking where to deliver them, they ask when. Since they were for Valentine's day, I asked that they be delivered on Valentine's day.

Imagine my surprise when, after being in Philadelphia all day, today, we get home and I find the flowers sitting on our front porch. Now, if you notice the posting-date of this post, you'll see that I'm writing this on February 13th.  Now, we didn't get home until nearly 21:00. I'm fairly sure that those flowers had to have been delivered before 17:00. I mean, how many florists are delivering after that on a Sunday. So, those flowers were sitting exposed on our front porch for a minimum of four hours. And, they were sitting there on the wrong day. Hell, the flowers delivery tag included a delivery time request of the 14th.

What the fuck? Thanks, guys. What if I'd asked for them to be delivered on the 14th because we weren't going to be getting home until the 14th??

Yeah, I'm kinda pissed.

Do They Really Have Room to Gloat

I wonder why it is the people most likely to teabag in multiplayer, first person shooter games also tend to be the ones with the lowest scores? I mean, any time I've seen some tool do the lame videogame version of teabagging, it's usually someone who's score is in the bottom third of the current match. I guess they have to celebrate the few victories they get, somehow.

Tastes Like Box

The problem with most food out of boxes is that they taste like they came out of boxes.

Les Habs vs. The Killer Bs

I love good game of "old time" hockey. Tonight, I watched the spectacle that was the Boston Bruins vs the Montreal Canadiens.

For starters, I don't care for either team. I'm a Flyers fan and the Flyers have a bit of a history against both teams. It's a history that makes it difficult to root for one team or the other. About the best one can hope for is that the building they're playing against each other in implodes during the game, wiping out both teams.

That said, while I loathe the Canadiens, I at least have a measure of respect for the Broons. So, when the two play, I'd rather see the Canadiens lose. Given the NHL's current points-award system, I'd rather see the Canadiens lose in regulation time than the game go to a tie (if one team has to get two points for an OT win, there's no point in rewarding the other team for just having gotten to OT).

At any rate, as much as I dislike both teams, tonights game was rather fun to watch. It was high-scoring and both teams were in a pissy mood. It was nice to see them going after each other, physically. Still, for all the hits and fighting, it wasn't as penalty-filled as some past Flyers classics. It's likely to be a long time before anyone matches the 419 minutes of penalties of the Flyers/Senators game on 3/25/2004.

Even though this game paled in comparison, penaty-wise, I did take away some nuggets of knowledge:

• PK Subban's pretty much the Mike Green of the Montreal Canadiens: he's a far better shooter than a defenseman. He's also kind of stupid in his on-ice conduct. Here's hoping for a case of PK jelly-brain!
• Apparently, six is at least one player over-capacity for the penalty box at the Boston Garden...
• I'm gonna have to set the DVR to record the next Habs/Bs game...

Lottery Fantasies

Ok, I admit it: I'm one of those people that buys lottery tickets. And, yes, I am fully cognizant of the odds of winning and that I'm, essentially, throwing money away. While my odds of winning without having bought a ticket are only slightly less than having bought one, there's still that small chance. Yet, for the price of just $1, I have a brief "hit" of hope. I've got something I can build fantasies about.

Now, my fantasies range from the mundane to the ridiculous. Like many people, I'd:

• pay off all my bills
• take care of family
• help out some close friends
• give to charities
• quit or reduce working
• buy property
• invest

However, I'd consider doing some things that others might not. For instance, were I to win a large lottery (say, a take-home of $100Mn+) I'd hire a posse of angry midgets to follow me around. I mean "why not". It's not something you see every day. Hell... Maybe when I buy that big estate on a defensible hill with enough natural resources to go "off the grid", I could put a moat around it ...and have those angry midgets patrol the moat (instead of stocking it with alligators).

Password Security

To start with, I'm one of those people that tends to be more security conscious than your average Internet user. That I write as much here (and elsewhere) in a public fashion was a conscious choice done after weighing out the likely risks of doing so.

I've long used complex passwords. Typically, I've used ones that were more complex than required of the systems I use. Hell, where possible, I make it so that I either need two-factor authentication or some kind of difficult to reproduce token rather than a brute-forceable password string.

Still, most web sites, applications, etc., rely on passwords. Most sites are less security conscious than I am allowing short, non-complex passwords that never expire. Of the few sites that show any level of security consciousness, it seems half-assed at best. Some sites only enforce, say, six-character passwords or, worse, only allow 6-10 character passwords. Some sites want you to have "complex" passwords, but then limit the choice of characters you can use to create that complexity.

At least one of the financial institutions I do business with falls into this limited-complex camp.

How freaking secure are your "complex" passwords when you don't allow any of ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ , or . in your passwords???

What's even more annoying about one, particular, financial institution is that they expire their passwords every 45 days. Now, this isn't an institution I deal with on a regular basis. My day-to-day bank allows me to pay all my bills from their portal. This other institution, I only log into when I need some information. So, every time I log in, I have to change my damned password and deal with the fact that they don't allow me to make my passwords as complex as I'd like. Even more fun, they don't allow me to re-use any of the last dozen passwords.While this is good, in theory, given my access frequency, that means it's going to take nearly two years before I can recycle. Now, given that they hamstring me on the passwords I can/would set, it makes memorization of the password even harder. So, pretty much every time I do log in, I have to go through the "I forgot my password" hassle. If they let me set the passwords I wanted, they'd be good against a brute-force attack for a number of years (basically, a cracking tool would have to work through several hundred quadrillion combinations to stumble on my particular combinations). But, no. I'm stuck with passwords that are several orders of magnitude less complex.

Hum a Jaunty Tune

Much as I don't understand how it is that every morning I wake up, I have some random music rattling about my head, I don't understand how new ones end up getting featured throughout the day. I mean, in some cases, it's because I accidentally heard an earwig. But, in most cases, it's completely random. With wakeups, it's generally a song I've not heard in ages (and didn't even ever particularly like). Even more bizarrely, it's rarely associated with whatever it was I was dreaming just before waking up. In the rare cases that I was dreaming it, the music is usually what wakes me up.

At any rate, I've got another random tune stuck in my head and it got there unprompted and in the middle of the day. All I can do, at this point, is think, "Argh: how did I get Symphony of Destruction stuck in my head??"

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?