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HOLY BLOATED ADWARE, BATMAN!

It's been a while. I still exist. Things aint great, but I'm still here.

Who's still here?

Teeth removed. Dentures in place. Drugs prescribed. Water and soft foods handy.

Owwwwww.

I got casted for my dentures today! They should be ready in 10-14 days and then I go under the knife! YAY!

:D

That link I posted to the gofundme had a random extra character in it. Oops.

http://www.gofundme.com/1w805c

There.

If anyone wants a bigger picture of the Panorex, lemme know. I can scan the paper copy and shove it on line somewhere.

And Panorexes, in case you didn't know are awesome, and sort of musical.

MRI's, OTOH, sound more like Skrillex but with more melody.

In June of last year I got ahold of some Greensmoke samples. http://www.greensmoke.com/ for those interested. If you just can't seem to get off cigarettes, I recommend them highly. They're not cheaper (about the same, actually, as a pack a day habit), but their customer service is excellent, and the tobacco flavors are pretty close to cigs. The menthol tastes a little "fruity", but that's what got me off of 25 years of smoking a pack a day of Newports.

They let me have those in the hospital in December. I had had a few cigs right before being admitted (didn't order my refills of cartomizers in adequate time), and those were the last tobacco I've had.

Last month or so, I switched to this: http://www.apolloecigs.com/Ego-electronic-cigarette-p/akego.htm. It's a little weird to get used to, and I think if I hadn't gone the Greensmoke route first, I might not have made it.

So. I'm not off the nicotine, but I'm off the tar and toluene and ammonia and carbon monoxide and all the other crap, and my hacking cough and sleep apnea are completely gone.

:D

Also, the Apollo system is much, much cheaper, and there's a wider variety of flavors. Right now I am having ginger flavor and spearmint flavor, and I've dropped from 18 mg/ml of nicotine to 12 mg/ml. And I will probably drop that to 6 mg/ml next, and then hang there for a while. Then I can go to nicotine-free, maybe (although that's NOT my highest health priority!) and just suck down flavored vapor. Which is basically like inhaling TicTacs, without having to suffer the artificial sweetener.

Been away for a while. Things are busy, so this is likely to continue.

For those of you not friended to me on facebook, here's the summary.

Moved six miles away from the last house I was at in April of last year. Sorta got settled in. Stuff happened. In December I had a dental abscess, which had me go to the emergency room at 8 pm Sunday night to see if they thought urgent antibiotics were warranted.

Blood pressure was 200/150, so I was admitted for three days or so under the possible diagnosis of HOLY SHIT, WE THINK SHE'S HAVING A STROKE since I was having some speech impairment. Then after a CT, an echocardiogram, and an MRI, they released me with a diagnosis of "We have NO FUCKING IDEA. Go get some teeth pulled".

Went to the dentist. That poor man. That poor, poor man. I think he was terrified I expected him to *fix* my teeth. I've never heard someone pitch into "let's rip it all out and give you dentures" so fast, ever. I think he was really surprised that I was happy and relieved to hear him say that.

Went to doctor, got BP meds, they are mostly working pretty well.

Got referral to oral surgeon. He did the Tron sounding x-ray and came in rubbing the back of his neck. "Your teeth are... honey, your teeth are bad. They're really *bad*."

Yes, Doc. I know that. They're in MY mouth and it's kinda hard to miss.

Three teeth removed emergently. Versed is some AMAZING SHIT, YO. Insurance took care of most of that, and about used up all the benefits. So it's about 8K for the dentures and having the rest of my teeth extracted and an alveoplasty where they basically take a carpenter's plane to your jawbones (AND IF ONE OF YOU FUCKERS SAYS "DENTAL COLLEGE" WITHOUT GOOGLIN' UP DENTAL COLLEGE LOCATIONS AND CHECKING THE WEBSITE FOR WHAT THEY REQUIRE IN A PATIENT, I WILL BEAT YOUR ASS!!!) So we put up a gofundme me here: http://www.gofundme.com/1w805cf and if you scroll down a bit, we even posted a picture of the Panorex.

Then in April I sneezed.

Big deal, I know, except that I cracked one of my last few molars down to the nerve, so that was another 3 teeth emergently extracted for a cool grand. Yeah, I could probably find someone cheaper, but I'm kind of liking the lack of infection, and the smooth postoperative course. Anyone in Atlanta needs a maxillofacial surgeon, hit me up, THIS GUY IS A GOD.

So then we thought "We are totally out of fucks to give, and so is everyone we know HEY OH MY GOD WE SHOULD SELL THOSE!!!!!"

http://www.fuckstogive.com

You're welcome.

All proceeds stop briefly in my pocket before going to the oral surgeon. When that is done, and I am promoted from Satan's Handjob Mistress (WHAT THE FUCK, EX-HUSBAND? WHAT DOES THAT JOB EVEN ENTAIL? DO I SCHEDULE THE HANDJOBS? DO I GIVE THE HANDJOBS? DO I JUST GIVE PERMISSION FOR THE HANDJOBS? ARE THEY GIVEN BY OR TO SATAN, OR MERELY APPROVED BY HIM? I CANNOT DRESS FOR THE POSITION IF I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT DOES!!! DO I WEAR LEATHER, OR VINYL, OR WHAT? HELP ME OUT, HERE!!!) anyway, to Toothless Soul Sucking Hag, then Daughterface need 3K in dental work, so... it will be a while before we actually see any monetary profit for fun stuff.

...I'm pretty cool with that.

I've been blessed with a surprising number of gifts on the gofundme, and we're like halfway there.

Then I went to D'Face's doctor and she ran bloodwork and stuff, and she was all OMG YOU AREN'T DIGESTING HAVE YOU CONSIDERED ENZYMES and I was all "HEY, I HEAR MOLARS HELP THAT" and she was all "D'oh! You are so right!" and then we talked about my Vitamin D level (a 6!) and my HbA1c (a 6.4) and we talked about diet vs metformin. So, we decided to try diet and we agreed that basically Paleo would be pretty good, and I got a glucometer to match my blood pressure machine thingy and now I have discovered that carbs are bad.

No, all of them. I can manage about 20 grams a day. So basically, I can have broccoli and cauliflower and turnips and butternut squash and leafy green things and roasted peppers, butter and cheese and heavy cream, and beef and goat.

Because APPARENTLY I wind up with an inflammatory reaction to coffee, chicken, salmon, pork, and swordfish WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK, BODY???? Y U SUCH AN ASSHOLE???

But when I keep the carbs away, my blood sugar is like between 90-120, so that's good, and it means I can probably stave off the need for medication. As long as I stay away from all sugars, and all grains. Seriously, even fucking quinoa jacks my blood glucose up. Also, every artificial sweetener on the planet is disgusting. Yes, even Stevia, Truvia, and monkfruit extract. So I have to drink unsweetened tea now, and water, and ... that's about it, really.

SO THIS IS WHY I HAVEN'T POSTED IN A WHILE. I'VE BEEN BUSY DETERIORATING.

I wonder if that weird funky pain I've been having in my right index bone for the last year or two has been related to the low Vitamin D level, which apparently means I have a ticket to the osteomalacia lottery YAAAAAAAAAAAY. So every night now, I get to practice swallowing. Fish oil, two BP meds, COQ10, Vitamin D, some herbal thing for "brain calm", a multivitamin, and an adrenal gland supplement because apparently I am stressed to the motherfucking eyeballs.

So, now that you've read this essay, I hope you'll forgive me for not having been on LJ. If there's something I need to see, please feel free to tag it in the comments.

I am now going to horrify every honest to god computer geek I have that reads this.

...that, or you're going to die laughing. At me, or with me, it's all good.

I asked Scott about "tracert" and "ping" and "ports"; he tried to explain that. Unfortunately, my brain works best with some very visual metaphors. So this is what I came away from that conversation with, presented here for your amusement.

"Ping" is a chore. This chore is performed by Bit (the little Yes/No guy from the original Tron). You tell Bit to... say... drive to DismalLand, find out why the fuck the lines are so long, and come back. When Bit comes back and says"Because it's DismalLand, the Tragic Kingdom, dummy. The lines are always long!" the Ping chore is complete.

Now, there are a lot of hazards between you and DismalLand. Some of it is bad road, some of it is bad drivers, some of it is that incredibly STUPID civil engineer who designed the fucking roads. I like to think that some of those hazards might include Jack Sparrow driving a parade float pirate ship, and he's being chased by a other pirates - either the kinds with swords in their teeth, or the kinds who are busily downloading cars and purses and stuff off the intarwebs. And then there's DHS, who are kind of like the Keystone Cops but with more guns and stuff.So to navigate all those things, Bit turns into Trinity from the Matrix. Probably on a motorcycle. I picked her because her leatherclad ass is amazing. Plus, she has guns and kung fu, and that picture is a lot more interesting.

Now, maybe you don't trust Bit. Maybe Bit ran off with your best friend like a two dollar whore this onetime. Maybe Bit is a pathological liar. Maybe Bit is the Godspouse of Tinkerbell and easily distracted. Who knows? But you think Bit is really damn flaky. So you hire some guy named TraceRoute.

TraceRoute's job is to follow Bit around EVERYWHERE AND REPORT EVERYTHING. "Bit's left turn signal came on at 10:15:00. Bit merged into the left lane at 10:15:20. Bit took her hands off the handlebars and blew the living shit out of Jack Sparrow's parade float at 10:16:31." So when Bit comes back, Bit comes back with an attitude and a ream of paper that details every time she did anything, ever.

So then you ask about the "ports". Ports are basically like doors.

I'm going to massively change metaphors here.

Say you're in a whorehouse. There are many doors. And behind each door is a different thing. Blowjobs behind this door, handjobs behind that door, goatse behind the other door, and thank all the gods of network traffic that the Etsy Cupcake Circle Jerk door is always locked. Naturally, all these doors are closed. Some of them are locked all the time, some are unlocked all the time, some are only locked when something fun is happening, and sometimes some asshole with a master key runs through and just randomly locks and unlocks shit to piss you off.

You can make Bit go check this for you,too. That way, YOU don't have to suffer surprise goatse. Bit deserves it, the bitch. There's about three different ways this can happen,but they're all called PortScan.

There's a doorman/bouncer at all those ports.

This bouncer is called...

WAIT FOR IIIIIIIIIT!



A DAEMON (This part is an inside joke to a particular forum. Don't worry about it if you don't get why that is sidesplittingly funny)

This is long. Really long. And fucked up. The Cliff's Notes version is that my new daughter in law's blood relations are Extra Special.

( If you're on my Google+, you've seen this alreadyCollapse )

My gmail got hacked/spoofed. If you get spam from me, sorry about that.

password changed; that should take care of it.