Blogosity

Regrouping

I bought a new bed on Saturday, and they'll deliver sometime Thursday; until then, I'm giving up on using the machine. I figure what's another week, given all the time it took between first diagnosis and actually getting the machine, and I just can't hack it between the claustrophobia and the discomfort of lying still until I ache. I got the comfiest one I could find that wasn't out-of-this-world pricey; I wanted to stay with queen-size so I could keep all my (relatively) nice sheets. Fortunately Sears was having a 50% off clearance sale, so I got a pretty nice one with a pillow-like top layer. Plus, they'll haul away the old bed, so I won't have to go through what I did with trying to find someone to take the couches. I thought about trying to sleep on the couch using the machine, but it's just a little too narrow to spend the night on, I think--one of my arms would either be over the edge or kind of wedged under me.
Sleep apnea sucks, but not as bad as getting only an hour or two a night; I spent most of last week feeling like I was on the verge of either tears or throwing up, or both.

Running on Empty

Getting used to sleeping with this stupid machine is hard, hard, hard. I feel old and sick and tired. I'm sure I'll adjust eventually, but right now the apnea was better than this. One thing I may do this weekend is buy a new bed. My current one is a futon, and an old one at that, and it's just too uncomfortable to stay on my back all night. Tonight I'll try padding it a bit, and see if that helps.

What Book Am I?

You're The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!

by Douglas Adams

Considered by many to be one of the funniest people around, you are
quite an entertainer. You've also traveled to the far reaches of what you deem possible,
often confused and unsure of yourself. Life continues to jostle you around like a marble,
but it's shown you so much of the world that you don't care. Wacky adventures continue to
lie ahead. Your favorite number is 42.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

First Night

First night with the CPAP machine, and boy was it hard to get through. Didn't help that the building had a power failure about a half-hour after I first went to bed that lasted for almost two hours. Fortunately (I guess), I wasn't yet asleep when the power went out, so I wasn't woken by the unpleasant sensation of trying to breathe through a six-foot tube that wasn't pushing any air--I got to experience that while awake. It's not impossible, just mildly uncomfortable. Still, I was able to take the mask off right away.
I hope tonight goes better. I particularly hope that I fall asleep faster tonight.

Coincidence?

I think not.

Season Two - You are a die-hard romantic, if
destined for tragedy. You're also growing up
and showing signs of maturity we didn't see
coming. Your best episode is "Lie to
Me," although the gothic stylings of
"Innocence," "Passion," and
"Becoming" will always be immortal.


Which Season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I've just started watching Season Two on DVD (never having watched Buffy when it was being broadcast).

Ultracoolness

Old English Aerobics Workout Room

RSS Feed Aggregator

I've been experimenting with BottomFeeder, a RSS feed aggregator. The good: its free, opensource, cross-platform, and understands pretty much every feed spec under the sun, including Atom. My old way of doing it, using a Mozilla sidebar which didn't read Atom feeds, meant that it wasn't any good for Blogspot/Blogger blogs unless they used 3rd party syndication, which hardly any bothered to do. In particular, I couldn't read badgerbag, even though badger had gone to the trouble of activating the feed just because I asked her to. The bad: the cross-platform GUI framework isn't so hot for OS X. It works, more or less, but so far I haven't been able to figure out how to delete feeds, or do anything that relied on the right-mouse menu in the Windows GUI.

Still, it lets me know when the blogs that I watch get updated, and that's good enough for now.

Cheating on New Year's Resolutions

I cheated a bit today: Borders was having a buy three get one free sale on paperbacks, so I got four new books, even though I was really only allowed three (having cleared six off my backlog). But I read one of the new ones already, so that's almost like not cheating. Sort of.

Ah, who am I trying to kid? Although, even though I've been trying to write down everything I finish, it's harder to keep track of than I thought it would be. Still, I'm making some progress in reducing the to-read stack, which is what I was aiming at.

On the other hand, the resolution about going to the gym more just isn't working out; I'm reliably doing two workouts a week, but four just seems like more than I can manage. Even if I do get home early enough, I'm still uncomfortably sore two days after the last workout.

Fickle Me

Suncoast in the mall is closed for renovations, so now those of us who have preorders have to shlepp to another Suncoast in a crappy little mall miles away. I asked them if they could just hold onto what I ordered until they move back in a few weeks, but no dice. Once I've gotten everything I've already paid for, I think that's it for me and Suncoast. For the past year or two I've been (literally) their best customer at that location, but now I've found that Best Buy across the street has almost as much anime (not quite, but close), is usually about $5 cheaper, has recently added a frequent shopper points program, and since they don't take preorders I'll never be faced with this situation, even if they close for renovations or move.

Rush of Nostalgia

Sitting here, listening to jazz out of the Long Beach station (now KJZZ, but was KLON back in the day) and suddenly realizing that it's 4:20 so that (not counting the time difference) this is exactly when I would be heading to work on the 405, listening to this very station. I don't miss the commute, or living in SoCal, and yet...there's that little thrill of deja vu.

Friends in Need

Of a smack upside the head. Do you give them one, or not? It's hard to watch them in the throes of self-delusion, but my bitter experience tells me that even if they beg for constructive criticism they don't mean it, and it can jeopardize your friendship to provide it. How much more unwelcome is unsolicited, or half-heartedly solicited, criticism, however badly needed it appears to an observer?

Rediscovery

Well, one thing poking around on orkut has done is reminded me of the existence of iTunes (and Japan-A-Radio in particular), so it's not a total waste. Pretty much a waste so far, but not a total waste.

Alton Brown Is My New Household God

I made his baked macaroni and cheese again Tuesday night, and it was indeed easy and delicious. J and the boy came over to partake; J liked it muchly, the boy wasn't too thrilled about the onions in it (apparently he doesn't like onions), but was polite. Beer was had (not by the boy) and life was agreed to be good.

This Gloss Is Boss

Hypotyposeis

On the other hand, this ought to work too:
Hyper génial!

Update: I just noticed that the css for the first example, which used to work, is now broken. The original effect was that the words in quotes would only appear when you hovered over the (undecorated) link. Click through to Hypotyposeis to see it in action. Just another reason that the title-attribute gloss is probably better.

Update 2 Huh, refreshing the page fixes the first example. Go figure.

Link thanks to The Cranky Professor

Moomin, meet Zoë

John & Belle Have A Blog: The violent and the voluntary:

Why, just this morning I was playing The Eels, "Daisies of the Galaxy", and Zoë spontaneously burst into tears, "It's tooooo saaaaad"

Of Heidi Bond-age

Heidi Bond, of Letters of Marque, is guest-blogging at Crescat Sententia

Crescat Sententia: February 08, 2004 - February 14, 2004 Archives

Social Security, Marriage and Divorce

Social Security Online - Get Help With Your Situation

If you are divorced after at least 10 years of marriage, you can collect retirement benefits on your former spouse's Social Security record if you are at least age 62 and if your former spouse is entitled to or receiving benefits. If you remarry, you generally cannot collect benefits on your former spouse's record unless your later marriage ends (whether by death, divorce, or annulment).

Note that this applies even if your ex remarries a "trophy" spouse. Also,

You will receive benefits based on your work record if you have worked long enough under Social Security-usually 10 years-to be entitled to benefits. However, if the benefit you can receive as a spouse is higher than your own Social Security benefit, you will receive a combination of benefits equaling the higher spouse benefit.

You can request a statement of your own benefit, based on your earnings history from the Social Security Administration.

FYI Badger

Legal Theory Blog points to a paper on The Law of Virtual Worlds

Many people live out large parts of their lives in virtual worlds, and soon many more will join them. The issues of property and cyborg rights are not going to go away.

Property interests will be the initial arena for the development of virtual- world law. This is the area of law in which most disputes will arise for some time to come, based upon actions of game owners as well as the filing of the Blacksnow and Castle Giran lawsuits. As we concluded in Part II, it seems clear that virtual assets can be characterized as property for the purposes of real-world law.

My Date

Oh, yeah, I had my first date with LT and her toddler the Saturday before last. Very casual, we just met at the mall for some Starbucks and hung out a while; she did some homework for a somewhat silly-sounding adult ed course she's taking (the homework involved shopping for (fortunately not buying) something personal and really extravagant. She managed to find a canvas Hermes bag and a pair of sunglasses both in the fifteen hundred dollar range, which seemed to fit the requirements). The date went well, which according to my newly revised standards means that she didn't email me the next day to say sayonara.

We've since talked some more on the phone, and we're going to meet again this coming Friday. I'm pretty nervous about it, since the plan is that she's actually going to come to our usual Friday night jamboree and hootenanny, and meet the Librarian and her two husbands.

My Precious

Inspired by minnie, I treated myself to a pair of Bose noise-reduction headphones as an early fortieth birthday present. (I resisted the urge to replace my perfectly functional, if clunky, Arcos Jukebox with a sleek new iPod) At least as far as listening on the train, it's like having a new pair of ears. Huzzah!

Finally, Fantasy

I exchanged the used-up copy of FFXI at the game store (they say they don't accept returns on MMPORG games, so it wasn't a matter of them reselling a used game as new--but they have caught people sneaking open the display copies and writing down the registration codes). With a new code it worked fine, and after a dozen or so tries I was able to create my character on the same server ("world") as LT. FFXI has this irritating system where you are assigned a server randomly, but you can eventually get enough in-game money ("Gil") to buy a "World Pass" which lets you create a new character on the same server your friends are on. Of course, by this time they're all level ten.... Baka. On the other hand, with a bit of patience you can just keep creating and deleting characters until you get one on the right server. In your face, Square Enix!
Irritation with that aside, the game is really pretty, and it's full of little bits of Final Fantasy goodness. The music, as usual, is superb, the canonical FF jobs are all there (plus, as with the earlier FF games, you can switch jobs as you go). And there are chocobo. I think you even get to ride them eventually. This makes me irrationally happy. I picked up the strategy guide, and it looks like my initial choice of jobs (Monk) is probably a good one given my newbishness. It's somewhat reassuring that being something of an old hand at the FF universe has some carry-over into understanding the world of the game.
I'll probably actually try playing, beyond wandering around the initial town square, sometime tonight. Two of my gamer friends are eager to know what I think of it, and if I like it they'll probably sign up as well.