June 30, 2009 Cast Away
I believe it's time to return my body for a refund. I got my cast off yesterday, and my ankle still hurts. In fact, I think it's worse than before the cast. So, what exactly is going on? Well, the orthopedist hypothesizes that I have nerve involvement. This means either my nerve is caught in a pain feedback loop, or is entrapped, possibly by my continuing aggravated ankle sprain.
So, not only have I done something horrible to my ankle, but I've involved a nerve. What probably happened? I sprained my ankle, rupturing a tendon which remains ruptured. The tendon leaks fluid into my ankle, causing it to swell like a slavering leech, until the inside of my foot resembles a saturated sponge. This turgescence presses against one or more nerve bundles in my ankle until one starts firing pain signals. My exploded tendon requires a cast or some other immobilization to facilitating diagnosis, but suppose I have a trapped nerve?
A foot prone to swelling has now been placed in an enclosed space with a nerve that's already under distress. Care to guess how this is a bad combination? Toward the end of my month in a cast, my ankle would occasionally present random bursts of pain, even when I was immobile. Occasionally, my lower leg would be wrought with ceaseless spasms. I started out skeptical about the pain diagnosis, but now it seems to make sense. The nerve was showing its displeasure, and really, still is. And now that it's been two months with the same injury, there's a slim possibility it's confused and will continue to report phantom pain, perhaps indefinitely.
As such, my orthopedist is reluctant to operate to fix the tendon rupture, because that might further provoke the nerve. Then, while my ankle would be fixed, the pain would remain or possibly even worsen. I've been referred to a nerve specialist, and the idea is that he will be able to determine the extent—or lack thereof—of nerve involvement, and hopefully either fix the source of the pain or refer me back to the orthopedist so she can do whatever is necessary to fix the tendon.
All I know is that my ankle hurts, continuing to swell without regular application of ice and anti-inflammatory medication. Walking is an exercise in ignoring the grinding feeling, or crutches to keep weight off my foot. I can't even bend my ankle without a jolt of pain. What on Earth did I do? No matter what it was, all I can do is wait and keep seeing doctors until one of them fixes it. Ah well.
Until Tomorrow
June 22, 2009 Nirvana is Ninja Cheerleaders
There comes a time when a movie comes along, that a man simply knows, deep within his soul, that nothing could ever eclipse its genius. Ninja Cheerleaders, my friends, is that very movie.
I knew I'd hit a goldmine when I saw George Takei listed in the credits, sure his unerring integrity was the only real endorsement David Presley's script needed. Not only was I proven correct, but his portrayal of Hiroshi, sensei to the trio of cheerleaders, literally had me weeping, caught in the tremendous perfection this low-budget comedy deserves! His ability to knowingly laugh on cue and cast approving nods is hereby unequaled, lending dramatic weight to something masquerading as terrible schlock.
Some of you may be asking yourselves, "Did we see the same movie?" or perhaps, "Exactly how high was David Presley when he wrote this?" or possibly even, "God, why!?" But know, you poor mislead and unfortunate creatures, that the true greatness bubbles, like a vat of baby-pot-pie, beneath the tattered and deplorable surface. This movie claims to be a comedy, but the honest truth, is that it critically reprimands our society for our dwindling social mores, our haste to judgment, and especially the harrowing lack of cheerleaders which exhibit criminally abysmal skill in the lost art of Ninjutsu. Some may insist a link between the slow extinction of Ninjas and the looming cataclysm which will obliterate the world in 2012, is impossible or at least highly unlikely. But Ninja Cheerleaders is a warning to us all, and absolutely not ridiculously atrocious garbage mistakenly committed to film by a cavalcade of deluded actors.
The best example I can cite came near the end of the flick. The main opposing Ninja, a Ninja-ette perhaps, refers to herself in the third person. At one point, this memorable dialogue takes place after a cop claims she can not shoot him with her crossbow, currently pointed completely in the opposite direction:
Cop: You're not that fast!
Kinji: [shoots cop with crossbow]
Kinji: Kinji is that fast.
How is this not the equal of Second City, Kids in the Hall, or Monty Python? I'll tell you! It's better. It's tongue-in-cheek, insightful, and poignant, where other such examples fall flat. The humor here is biting, sardonic, and wild. Nobody hams up his or her performance without reason, or delivers monotonous readings without fully wringing out every last drop of irony.
This, my friends, is what cinema should be!
Until Tomorrow
June 16, 2009 Recipe: Gravy Stew
Being as I'm pretty much stuck at home in my wonderful cast, I've decided to try and go through all the staples we've acquired in our freezer and pantry that may or may not be in danger of expiring or acquiring capacious amounts of freezer burn. Since cooking the crap out of something is always the best way to ensure tenderness, I whipped out the crock-pot.
- 2 lbs stew beef, cubed
- 4 cups water
- 1/2 cup white vinegar
- 1 cup rice
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2/3 cup flour
- 1 tsp sea salt, ground
- 1/2 tsp bay leaves, chopped
- 1/4 tsp black pepper, ground
- 1/4 tsp sage, dry
- 1/4 tsp rosemary, dry
Combine water, vinegar, and stew beef in crock pot, cook on low 4-6 hours. Remove beef and set aside. Whisk flour into beef stock. Reintroduce beef. Combine remaining ingredients. Cook on low for 4-6 hours. A wheat or oat beer can be substituted for half the water.
What comes out of this recipe is a thick, gravy-like stew (that's the butter, flour, and stock) with a rice base. I also added a couple cups of mixed vegetables to bulk it up and add a little more flavor. I seasoned mine to taste, so measured amounts are approximate. I about shat myself when I tasted it—way better than it has any right to be. I'm certain it would be fantastic served over toast, which I plan on doing. It's days like this I'm not totally heartbroken the summer robotics class was full when I was eleven, forcing me into cooking instead.
Until Tomorrow
June 14, 2009 Always Known
Logic is a conundrum.
That which sups upon the wretched singularity of the soul and gibbers unsated, slathering beyond redemption among voracious gullets of woe, seeking to consume every vestige of complacent acceptance until only oblivion remains. And as that creeping, insidious ivy grasps and claws, rending thought and will asunder, naught but confusion reigns where once supreme and permanent wisdom wrought transcendent equilibrium before the sack of time forgotten and unsung.
But these lies, terrible and undulating through the ether of consciousness, all corrupting and all permeating in the confines of forever, cast tentacles of suspicion and rage among the weary and the damned. And they, tired and lost, stumbling through insanity of mind and depletion of body, fall, spent and shattered on the plains of sifting dreams. And as the universe carries on, unrelenting and uncaring for the plight of absolute innocence, all gaze through that distant light and sigh in despair.
It is not ignorance that obliterates and taints the future, never a waiting simulacrum haunting the shadows, but ourselves, misled and despoiled by casual fantasy, of worlds unexplored and scenarios both real and represented only in dreams. And when Morpheus, king of sand and wandering sliver along the path, when he scrutinizes our naked desires, greedy and righteous, callow and indignant, nothing remains but reflections unrecognized and despicable—we escape and quiver from foe and salvation, terrified of even deliverance from ourselves.
At this precipice, watcher and pariah, I've always seen and understood, incapable of derailing the script portrayed by unwitting caricatures of cognizant beings. It's so meaningless, their throes of yammering, irrelevant essence of principle or honor. Among the writhing billions, upon a churning rock among trillions, what compulsions drive them? To what end?
And through antiquity it continues unabated. As if obscurity is an attribute of anything material, and even immaterial since perception defines and requires observation. These two sides, existence and illusion, are they Alpha and Omega? The infinite justification beyond the capability inherent to manifestations within? Perhaps. And if so, what then of their enigmas and facets of discovery? Be it an unfathomable engine rife with parasites caught within the abysmal depths of whirling cogs driving some ultimately lumbering automaton, or an incidental apparition conjured only by fevered confusion, it matters not.
Until tomorrow comes, goes, and sinks unto chaos, the answer is delivered upon the seeker. Yes.
Until Tomorrow
June 12, 2009 Take a Foot to Ubuntu
It has come to my attention that I haven't shared the fact I'm now wearing a cast over my ankle. It would appear that my foot problems weren't fully explained by the tendon rupture. According to my newly acquired orthopedic specialist, the fact my peroneal tendon hurts without any visible damage, but my ankle is relatively mild even with the rupture means she wants to isolate further. The cast is meant to totally immobilize my ankle and see if something hurts less in a month. So, on the 29th of June, I get the cast removed and will probably be scanned a couple times to see if the tendon has improved.
That was last Thursday. Now that I've spent a week in a cast, I have to say ambulating anywhere is more trouble than it's worth. At least with the walking cast, I could rely on a single crutch and only have mild trouble with stairs. But with a full cast, I can't rest any weight on my right foot at all. Now my puny, typically ectomorph arms are being forced to haul around my withered carcass on both crutches. This wouldn't be a problem except our apartment is on the second floor. Thus, any trip anywhere requires my to use the handrails to swing myself downstairs, and since using crutches on more than a handful of stairs is inherently dangerous, I have to crawl back up.
On the other hand, it also means I can work from home, because I could pretty much never mount the first high step on the Metra, and I'm certainly not going to risk my wrists by using crutches for the two miles I'd have to migrate to and from the stations and work. I've acquired a wheelchair from Jen's parents, but I don't think the shuttle to the Metra has a working wheelchair ramp, since it's been covered in a tarp the whole time I've lived in this apartment. I may try it once just to see what happens.
I've also purchased AT&T internet, as our apartment complex has an exclusive contract with a company named Ramapo, which means cable and internet are both handled by the same inept and obscure company likely owned and operated by Chuck, Bill, Anna-Lee, and a single inbred nephew from a leaky double-wide embedded in a copse of trees up a dirt path littered with rusty Chevy pickups. Why inept? In the year we've lived here, there hasn't been a single week where the internet didn't go down; as a former BBS SysOp, I've had more reliable dialup. TV? Yeah, it's not actually cable. Instead, Ramapo has combined about 90 DirecTV channels into a single arbitrary feed, so no TV guide anywhere will match our lineup unless we manually match by station callsign and time-zone. Laughably, this service cost more from Ramapo than AT&T. And as a DBA working from home, a reliable internet connection is absolutely required, so I had no choice in the matter anyway.
As a public service, Ubuntu Jaunty users, please see bug #363695. If you use apt instead of Synaptic as any sane user does, purge the apt-xapian-index package from your system. As a DBA, I often index, search, and report on content stored in immense databases. Apt-xapian-index indexes all of the Debian package headers and contents for Synaptic's quick-search feature. Now, why this requires 100% CPU, and intense disk IO for several minutes is beyond asinine, when I can query the contents of a table over 20GB in size faster. The contents of every installed Debian package header and description would fit in memory, making it absolutely trivial to index unless the programmer is retarded.
The only explanation I can see is that Xapian is issuing single scans for each individual package in a giant, intensive 'for' loop. What the hell Ubuntu? This is the fourth unfixed regression I've encountered from a previous release in the past month. What, was the disk and CPU usage considered trivial? Not everyone has an 8-core system and a 10-disk raid-1+0 comprised entirely of high-performance Intel SSDs. What about bug #356374?
Sure, it's not critical, but how do you not notice that any notification from the system closes the widget layer? Or how about #337910? Invalid? You asses! Nautilus goes into an infinite EAGAIN loop (according to my favorite tool: strace), and you mark the report invalid as a duplicate of a completely different problem? I guess I was just imagining the nautilus process I had to 'kill -9' before it stopped, then. Good to know.I've been a proponent of Ubuntu for a while now, but I'm starting to reconsider. I may have to even try Mandriva, or SUSE, or even Fedora again.
Until Tomorrow