Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I had a really bad day. I'll probably write about it later. But I feel like posting something positive first.

The silver lining to the Bush administration is that it chased Berkeley Breathed back into the newspapers. (Linking to the printer-friendly version because the main version doesn't display correctly on my system.) "It was painful to sit through the war without a public voice."

The new strip will be called Opus, and will run on Sundays.

(Breathed shows up in a Washington Post chat session as well. But only for one comment.)

theferrett wrote:

People say the internet has started more flame wars thanks to misunderstandings; You can't tell when they're joking! Put the smiley face at the end of the sentence! I think they're only partially right. The internet causes fights, but they're not because people don't know when you're joking.
 
I think that a lot of fights continue because you can't tell that the other person's about ready to punch you in the face.

Waiting for the cavalry to arrive, alternating between sleep, sulking, and distracting myself by compiling more links to take my mind off my troubles. So here's an extra dose this week.

• Genetically-modified vaginal bacteria may be able to serve as a "living condom", secreting proteins that protect women against HIV. "Lee and his colleagues chose the vaginal native Lactobacillus jensenii and genetically-engineered it to secrete soluble CD4, a protein HIV grabs hold of to break into cells. In test tube experiments, the enhanced L. jensenii was able to completely block laboratory strains of HIV from infecting human cells, and blocked infection by a strain recently isolated from patients by more than half." [...] "Human trials of other strains of natural lactobacillus suggest these microbes can successfully colonise the vagina for days or even weeks."
• A message to clueless website authors presents a lot of good reasons not to write bad web pages. Not intended as a tutorial, it's an attempt to convince web designers to go read proper tutorials. Probably worth sending to the webmaster of the next site you encounter that doesn't work with JavaScript turned off, or blocks your browser because it isn't Netscape or MSIE.
• Pupils shocked as teacher vanishes through floor again (Need I say more? The "again" is the boggling part.)
• Beware of this sign!
• There's a discussion of the study that showed "holes in the brain" resulting from a single dose of Ecstacy, which turned out to have used the wrong drug, over in errorist's journal.
• CNN reports that a man shipped himself from NY to TX in a crate, by plane and basically managed to scare the %&$^ out of the TSA in the process. "The TSA is working with the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office to investigate and determine if there are any federal charges for this incident." (Thanks to littlebuhnee for the pointer)
• BDSM Tech Support (what it might be like working helpdesk). Uh, probably not for everyone, but I know a significant subset of my friends will find it funny.
• Okay, in the really not for everyone category (I can think of one or two people who'd be quite bothered by this) and probably "not work safe" for many workplaces, here's an amazingly creative bit of bodyart that incorporates both tatoo and piercings into a unified design.
• errorist recently posted Kent M. Keith's "Paradoxical Commandments", which I probably ought to print out in large type and stick on a wall. "People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway. [...]" (There's also a link to a page telling where that list comes from.)
• And finally, theferrett wrote something I was going to write, only a few orders of magnitude better than I was going to, about the new plan to red-flag air travellers based on profiles. Really, go read it now.

I've been eating Tums as though they were candy since I'm out of Protonix -- I've got two pills left that I'm holding in reserve for either Really Bad Days or times when I cannot afford to be distracted by the acid reflux. But over the weekend, facing a reeeeeally looooong Saturday, I did take the single remaining Prilosec capsule that I found in my bedroom when I was packing. It was left over from before Kaiser decided that everybody taking Prilosec would be switched over to Protonix ... allegedly for effectiveness or safety reasons, but my (uninformed) guess is that it had more to do with getting a more profitable deal on Protonix. So it was well past its expiration date, but I wasn't worried about that (especially after reading that web page about old drugs).

My old prescription was for 20mg/day, and this was only a 10mg capsule, but Prilosec always worked better for me than Protonix anyhow. I did chew some Tums on Saturday, but not many, and things never actually got to the point of pain. (Yes, most days it hurts.)

The good news: now I've started seeing television ads for "Prilosec OTC". The not-quite-as-good news: the ads say, "coming soon", so I can't run out and pick some up yet. The dunno-how-good news: the ads don't make it clear whether this is the same thing as I took before, just available over the counter now, or a slightly different version for OTC use; also, I have no idea whatsoever how much it's going to cost. So it might wind up being something I can't afford, which means I need to get insured again and stick with prescription stuff, or it might wind up being a major problem-solver for me, something to help me until I get insurance and a way to stay under the benefit-cap for drugs once I do get insured. So I'm holding my breath, crossing my fingers, knocking on wood, and waiting for more details.

In a related thought ... who among you has health insurance you pay for out-of-pocket (instead of through your employer), and which companies/plans are folks happy with? I need to go into Heavy Research Mode, which I'm not looking forward to, and being able to narrow the field a little -- or at least have some starting places -- will be useful. Not sure when I'll be able to afford insurance, but I ought to figure out whether it makes more sense to try to get caught up and reinstated with Kaiser or find something better.

I've been rather pleased with one of Kaiser's doctors (a PA actually) and not-displeased with another, but I've never been happy -- or even comfortable -- with the organization as a whole. And I do feel that the HMO (probably most HMOs, but I've got a small sample size) is set up to impede my getting decent care. I also haven't liked the way that each of the last couple of years, my benefits have been cut and my premiums have gone up, at the same time. (Shouldn't it be one or the other? Doing both is like rubbing salt in the wound!)