grindmonkeh

If you're reading this, then you're GREAT and I regularly read your entries in turn...BUT I need more active users on my FL. If you would, recommend 2 or 3 of your favorite LJ friends that I might add as well. If you have more than 2 or 3 then you are the coolest.

*apple hiccup*

I'm going on Day 4(!) of no diet soda and no migraine. If this is a coincidence then it is convincing thus far, because I've had a migraine EVERY day for the last few months as I've been washing down either a Darvocet, Imiprex, or an over-the-counter every day with...diet soda. I'm not drawing any conclusions yet, but the last *severe* headache I've had was last Friday...the last time I had a Diet Mountain Dew. I'll see how this evidence holds up in a few days.

Current Music: Massive Attack - Splitting the Atom

I just learned yesterday, after fighting migraines, dizziness, and memory problems over the past several months, that ASPERTAME has been reported to trigger migraines, dizziness, and memory problems in certain people. I'm surprised that I've never heard this. I started drinking Diet Dr. Pepper instead of regular Mountain Dew in mid-May, and made other dietary changes that lead up to a 20+ pound weight loss. In June I switched to Diet Mountain Dew, and by the end of June I began having terrible headaches and disorientation on an almost daily basis. My Doctor ENCOURAGED me to drink more Diet Mountain Dew with the logic that the caffeine would help, and with the additional stress and other variables (like a blood-pressure spike) I never suspected that an artificial sweetener could be the root of this evil. Of course this could be all entirely coincidental, but I'll trade diet soda to rid of these migraines in an instant.

SO HOPEFULLY...my misery has been aspartame poisoning and it will go away soon.

Now...from researching (THE INTERNETS!) I have found a lot of controversy on this subject. Every report seems to be THE legitimate report, and there are just as many "Does not!" as there are "Does too!" articles. I'd like to find out myself.

Today is the first day without diet soda and day one of nothing but an initial dose of coffee in the a.m. followed by water.

If anyone knows anything of this topic, PLEASE do tell.

I've been off of work and off of life since Monday dealing with the loss of my Grandad. He was in terrible health for a few weeks...in and out of the hospital with blood transfusions and tests that were conclusive to a prognosis of multiple deep bleeding ulcers that were very painful, wouldn't let him eat, and kept him up all night while he got sick. I've been to their house every other day for the last three weeks helping out with every-day tasks that he was no longer able to perform and to listen to him tell stories that I've already heard dozens of times.

Monday was his sister's birthday, my Great-Aunt Florence, who passed away a few years ago after a terrible bout with Alzheimer's. I stopped by to bring vanilla pudding (the only thing he could keep down) to my Grandad and visit for a minute before we left for St. Louis, and found him sitting in his work-building with his revolver on his lap. I asked him if he was cleaning it. He said he was making sure it was useable, and told me how rotten he had been feeling. He was smiling and in good humor. I told him that I was taking the boys to see Monday Night Raw, professional wrestling, in St. Louis since they were so crazy about it. He laughed and asked if I remembered when he took my brother, cousin, and I to see the pro-wrestlers at a local school gymnasium some twenty-five years ago. And of course I did. I said I had to run, and I'd be by the next day to talk to him about mowing his yard again. Smiling he said, "have a big time!" as I walked back to the house, said bye to Grandma, and then left.

He put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

I made it ten miles out of town before I called back to their house to make sure they had Bran's cell-phone number. My grandmother had walked out to see what was taking him so long, and found him on the floor of his work-building. She didn't realize what he had done, but hurried back to the house and called 911 thinking he had fallen. I spoke to the responders on the scene right after they arrived, and rushed back and made straight for where he was lying before the police stopped me and calmed me down enough so that I realized that I didn't want to go any closer. It didn't seem real.

I've only gone to bed sober one night since then, and I tossed and turned for two hours before my head relented enough to let me fall asleep. I knew he had the gun, and the thought had crossed my mind that he wasn't just checking it over. Bran was surprised when I had mentioned to her that Grandad had his gun out, and I made the remark, "It's his gun and his life...I'm not going to tie him to a chair." I learned when my mom arrived and I told her what had happened that his father, my great-grandfather, died the same way.

We put him in the ground today and I miss him so terribly. We always shared a birthday party since his was on the 1st of September and mine is on the 7th. He was going to be 84. He knew he couldn't pass the test to get his drivers license renewed this time due to his poor vision.

When I was in the eighth grade we had to write an essay on who our hero was and why. I tore my closet apart yesterday trying to find that essay, but it's long gone as well as so apparently is some of the magic that a grandparent lends to life.

It's going to be a rough one, Grandad.

Great article. I've carried the stigma of metal-head with me for the last 25 years, and through high school and college I was constantly defending my tastes to girlfriends and social circles...as I had a fairly easy time winning friends and dates, but always never quite feeling like like I belonged with the overly-social sort. I've been lucky that most people I've grown close to could look above the Slayer t-shirt and see that not everyone who touts a horror-image laden ode to metal is a complete goddamned nitwit or a burned-out astronaut.

And I've made the comparison to of metal music to string movements to that intelligent and gorgeous girl who out-classed me in tastes and style, but who nodded and understood when I'd play a Chuck Schuldiner instrumental and ask her to listen to it as if it were played on acoustic strings and the distortion was that feeling you get when you know you can never express your anger, frustration, anxiety, or angst.

My wife STILL doesn't understand, but she's cool with it.

Up the Irons.

Books read thus far this year...
Snuff - Chuck Palahniuk
Coraline - Neil Gaiman
Wolves of Odin - Grant Gould (graphic novel)
Dark Tower: The Long Road Home - Stephen King, Peter David, Robin Furth, and Richard Isanove (graphic novel)
The Time Machine - H.G. Wells
The Island of Dr. Moreau - H.G. Wells
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner) - Phillip K. Dick
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
Coyote: A Novel of Interstellar Exploration - Allen Steele
Year's Best SF 10, 2005 - David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.
Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 1 - Robert Silverburg
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
Got Fight? - Forrest Griffin
The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Rant - Chuck Palahniuk
The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch

We spent a couple of days last week in St. Louis to take in a baseball game and to check out the City Museum. After it quit raining, the game was a blast. The City Museum is a lot less than a museum than it is a metal-sculptor's crazy dream.

( Photos and more... )

I'm ready for a beer. Then I'll have a good reason for having a headache tomorrow.

My Jeep is fixed, I had to rebuild the drum-brakes with a new wheel cylinder after shearing off an over-torqued bleeder valved. I replaced all the brake-lines from the master cylinder on back, except for one three foot long segment to the passenger-side wheel. I'll replace that one later this summer just for good measure.

My dad is in the hospital again. His blood pressure skyrocketed yesterday, but they said he didn't have another heart attack. His job is literally going to kill him unless he quits and finds something that isn't as demanding. He delivers construction supplies, and daily has to handle thousands of pounds of shingles, concrete blocks, etc. I'm going to call to get the lowdown when I get home.

Piper turned 6 today.

I'm ready for a beer.

This movie looks really good: Moon.

The 4th of July was rain-filled and anti-climactic, but Bran and I had a chance to spend some time with WhoreLearn and Julia at Victory Field while we absorbed the scenery until the game was called. We exchanged our tickets for the August 5th game, the Indianapolis Indians (Pittsburgh Pirates) against the Charlotte Knights (Chicago White Sox). ...So we'll reconvene our brat-eating and b.s.'ing at that time with perhaps some baseball to spectate.

I picked up a '95 Jeep YJ a week ago on Sunday, and managed to blow the brake-line on Wednesday after a couple hundred miles of driving at extremely boring intensity. I pulled/cut the corroded brake-line out on Thursday evening and installed the new one on Friday morning. With a cookout to attend Friday evening, the trip to Indianapolis on Saturday, and a ride planned with my friend Tom on Sunday, I put off bleeding the air out of the brake system until Sunday evening. This seemingly simple task spiraled into the throes of adversity when I attempted to loosen up the bleeder-valve and it sheared right off in my socket. My neighbor happened to walk over to ask me to look at his pc as I was lying on the garage floor staring at it stupidly, so he went home and got his set of EZ-Outs. That's when I sheared his EZ-Out off in the sheared-off bleeder valve. If there was anyway possible, then I would have broken something else trying to remove the sheared-off EZ-Out...I called it a night instead. Now I have to pick up a wheel-cylinder for the brake-drum and swap that out so the system has a good bleeder-valve. I'm picking one up after work and deciding if I want to tear anything else up or pay someone else to make my problems go away.

I should mention that the previous owner mentioned as a selling point that his son-in-law had recently rebuilt the rear brake system. He must not have felt the need to replace the corroded lines, and his son-in-law must have thought that bleeder-valve needed torqued down like a motherfucker.

( Have some photos. )

Books read thus far this year...
Snuff - Chuck Palahniuk
Coraline - Neil Gaiman
Wolves of Odin - Grant Gould (graphic novel)
Dark Tower: The Long Road Home - Stephen King, Peter David, Robin Furth, and Richard Isanove (graphic novel)
The Time Machine - H.G. Wells
The Island of Dr. Moreau - H.G. Wells
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner) - Phillip K. Dick
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
Coyote: A Novel of Interstellar Exploration - Allen Steele
Year's Best SF 10, 2005 - David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.
Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 1 - Robert Silverburg
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
Got Fight? - Forrest Griffin

I'm a UFC junkie. Clay Guida and Forrest Griffin are my two favorite fighters, so when I saw Forrest wrote a book I had to nab it.

*Ouch* Well that was really stupid and random. I opened my Chinese take-out box and was folding the flaps down out of the way when one of them slipped and catapulted a copious amount of spicy-gravy-stuff condensation all over my face and into one of my eyes.

Anyhow, the book was dumb, mildly entertaining, and a fast read. My perpetual headache has pulled me away from Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil...and music as well. But my blood pressure has dropped to a relatively normal level and the MRI came back clear.

I had a dream last night that Gene Hoglan was tattooing crossed pistons on my inner bicep.

Fawk. From dull to light-headed all day. Doctor appointment on Thursday...I hope this is just a phase, because I'm ready to flip it.

My head has felt so dull over the past few days that it has been a challenge to even think straight. I went to a steak-house yesterday and couldn't come up with the words "prime rib" for several minutes, even though that's almost always what I order at such a restaurant. I just feel so goddamn dense in a literal sense of the word...like my forehead is full of mud. And I can't get anything done.

Both rabbits died over the weekend and I buried them yesterday. The heat was likely the culprit even though they had plenty of water and shade.

Current Music: the Devin Townsend Project - Ki

I hate my privet hedges. I spent two hours today trimming them and the job isn't half-finished. They're approaching 10-12 feet tall in places and they're as insidious as the goddamn triffids.

this is a triffid.

I'm about to call in a broken arrow on the bastards.

Working evenings this week. I just got Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil from ze postman. I got an electric smoker as an early father's day present, but I haven't had time to take it out of the box. I've been holding my mother-in-law's smoker hostage and smoking anything I can get my hands on. Smoked turkey...so delicious.

I think Oreo-rabbit is going to die. I'm trying to decide what to do with them since they don't get much attention other than their daily feedings.

Current Music: Mastodon - Call of the Mastodon

or...excuse me, portable pc stations (since they won't buy me a defibrillator). I just talked my boss into buying me us two of these to console to our blade-servers.

I'm going to find a couple of Hawaiian shirts and hats to put on these and then hang our camera below the display.

Snuff - Chuck Palahniuk
Coraline - Neil Gaiman
Wolves of Odin - Grant Gould (graphic novel)
Dark Tower: The Long Road Home - Stephen King, Peter David, Robin Furth, and Richard Isanove (graphic novel)
The Time Machine - H.G. Wells
The Island of Dr. Moreau - H.G. Wells
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner) - Phillip K. Dick
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
Coyote: A Novel of Interstellar Exploration - Allen Steele
Year's Best SF 10, 2005 - David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.
Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 1 - Robert Silverburg
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

I removed all the short-stories and put the collective works in instead...they were a bit convoluting.

I'm waiting for the Fed-Ex guy to bring me a camera.

On the new Dream Theater album, is it just me or do Mike Portnoy's vocals sound like a professional wrestler?

Current Music: Dream Theater - Black Clouds and Silver Linings

I traded in my PowerShot A80 to Canon for a SX100IS through their customer loyalty program and it should be here on Tuesday. The only thing odd about that model is there is no optical viewfinder...not that I use mine even a third of the time, but it has great features, rave reviews, and at $125.00 I couldn't pass it up.

I saw UP yesterday and thought it was great.

Return of the Ewok.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/71469/late-night-with-jimmy-fallon-mon-may-4-2009?c=1999:2230

Chocolate Bear loves some stop-motion and Star Wars.

I took the boys fishing Saturday evening...they caught half a dozen bluegill each and had fun. It was a test of patience on my part...going between the two of them to deal with tangles, snags, silly questions, baiting, re-baiting, taking fish off, etc. I forgot my camera.

Watched another hour and a half of Return of the King (extended) with Mason...we have about another hour to go and we've finished our Lord of the Rings run. He's been really into it, but we tend to continue where we left of late on Saturday nights and he starts fading away after an hour and a half. When he finishes the Harry Potter series I'll let him borrow The Hobbit. He has read five of the seven books, and at the rate he is going he'll be finished by the time school is out.

I kicked ass on the elliptical runner yesterday morning...I'm hoping to see < 200 on the scales soon. I watched the next 40 minutes of Quantum of Solace and I should easily finish it up on my next run.

We saw Wolverine too...I liked it overall, despite the typical book to screen flaws.

I'm typically unproductive today...grrrdamn self-performance evaluation...a final exam tomorrow...and a paper to finish. I have to install a blade-server chassis in the U's library this afternoon too. That's actually what I consider to be a good time.

And now...noodles. And maybe something work-like. If I don't destroy this bluetooth mouse first.

So I've lopped off my hair and am now able to pass as a normal member of society. The rats...four days and about 400 miles on my motorcycle literally had me pulling large amounts of hair out by the roots. It became worse with the growth of every additional inch of hair...even with a full-faced helmet on my commute to and from work. RATS...and the rising outside temperature. To put it simply, I was ready for a change. Change is good.

I have one more paper to finish. I'm a bit agitated because my morning has been filled with programmer overflow...precisely the same shit I'd be doing if they had hired me for the programmer job. Why should they pay me more if they can push the work onto me nonetheless? On the bright side, we're going to a 4-day work week again for the summer, and that means the celebrated 3-day weekends will once again be upon me.

I've had so much energy and the desire to exercise this week while I'm at work, but by the time I get home I've lost sight of it. I guess I should be channeling it into the last week of schoolwork, and it's apparent that in no amount of time will that paper write itself while minimized to the taskbar. I should try getting on the elliptical runner for a while this evening though.

If you like Jane's Addiction, Fugazi, Bauhaus, etc...this is a band that was tragically overlooked in the early 90's...
http://www.myspace.com/thegodmachine

Current Music: the God Machine - Scenes from the Second Storey

(2:14:11 PM) charasan: You like? Ja?
(2:14:21 PM) Matt: like what?
(2:14:30 PM) charasan: That paper?
(2:14:40 PM) Matt: i'll read it when i've got some free time
(2:15:24 PM) charasan : Meh
(2:16:08 PM) Matt: don't meh me.
(2:16:15 PM) Matt: i thought meh was dead
(2:16:21 PM) charasan : Meh.
(2:16:41 PM) charasan : I usekes itsk as Isk seesk fits.
(2:16:56 PM) charasan : Woah...channelin' Popeye there...
(2:17:33 PM) Matt: i thought it fell out of fashion as the post-Matrix apathy found in year 2000 high-school grads hit the net and went to the west.
(2:17:36 PM) Matt: the world has moved on.
(2:18:28 PM) Matt: YOU KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE.
(2:18:52 PM) charasan : I like living in the past. Everybody there knows me.

(2:30:17 PM) charasan : http://www.anthony-robbins.org.uk/pics/Anthony_robbins_testimonials.jpg
(2:30:26 PM) Matt: ?
(2:30:30 PM) Matt: who the fuck is that?
(2:30:41 PM) charasan : Tony Robbins? Self-help guru?
(2:30:45 PM) Matt: O.
(2:30:49 PM) charasan : Family Guy spoofed him once.
(2:31:13 PM) Matt: what happens when all the pop-culture has been spoofed?
(2:31:16 PM) charasan : Plus these are people who aren't used to me with teeth
(2:31:20 PM) Matt: will the pop-culture spoofing trend be over?
(2:31:28 PM) charasan : NEVER
(2:31:42 PM) Matt: it's shameless
(2:31:45 PM) Matt: a copout
(2:31:55 PM) Matt: it's like hollywood remaking every decent movie ever made
(2:32:00 PM) Matt: because they can't think ahead
(2:33:06 PM) Matt: maybe that's why I think family guy sucks
(2:33:07 PM) Matt: :D
(2:33:10 PM) Matt: I said it
(2:33:14 PM) Matt: Family Guy sucks.
(2:33:16 PM) charasan : ...
(2:33:33 PM) charasan : Krom...
(2:33:43 PM) Matt: it's like the Simpsons, only without imagination.
(2:33:54 PM) charasan : Manatee jokes? :P
(2:35:00 PM) charasan : But you'll watch South Park?
(2:35:15 PM) Matt: I haven't watched south park in 10 years
(2:35:34 PM) charasan : ...do we have anything in common? :D
(2:35:44 PM) Matt: yer ma.
(2:36:45 PM) charasan : My mother is a saint!!!
(2:36:55 PM) charasan : Oh wait...she SLEPT with a saint...my bad :D
(2:37:37 PM) Matt: mall Santas don't count
(2:37:42 PM) Matt: you KNOW they're not the real St. NIck
(2:37:45 PM) Matt: they're his HELPERS.

(2:41:07 PM) charasan : I had like 2 hours of sleep...I'm barely cognizant right now.
(2:41:59 PM) charasan : I'll be soooo glad when this semester is over...
(2:42:43 PM) Matt: how long before you take classes again and bitch daily about them?
(2:42:44 PM) Matt: summer?
(2:42:45 PM) Matt: fall?
(2:42:46 PM) Matt: :D
(2:43:07 PM) charasan : Fall! Hey! I knew going in this semester was going to be *the* tough one.
(2:43:18 PM) Matt: so what was last semester?
(2:43:28 PM) charasan : Assuming I don't have to retake anything, it's all smooth sailing after this
(2:43:52 PM) Matt: that is going on record.

Books, Graphic Novels, and Short Stories Read Thus Far this Year...

Snuff - Chuck Palahniuk
Coraline - Neil Gaiman
Wolves of Odin - Grant Gould (graphic novel)
Dark Tower: The Long Road Home - Stephen King, Peter David, Robin Furth, and Richard Isanove (graphic novel)
The Time Machine - H.G. Wells
Twilight - John Campbell (short story)
The Little Black Bag - C.M. Cornbluth (short story)
A Martian Odyssey - Stanley Weinbaum (short story)
Arena - Frederic Brown (short story)
First Contact - Murray Leinster (short story)
The Island of Dr. Moreau - H.G. Wells
Microcosmic God - Theodore Sturgeon (short story)
Act of God - Jack McDevitt (short story)
The Sandkings - George R.R. Martin (short story)
The Nine Billion Names of God - Arthur C. Clarke (short story)
First Commandment - Gregory Benford (short story)
The Quest for St. Aquin - Anthony Boucher (short story)
Nightfall - Isaac Asimov (short story)
Surface Tension - James Blish (short story)
Mimsy Were the Borogoves - Lewis Padgett (short story)
The Roads Must Roll - Robert Heinlein (short story)
Helen O'Loy - Lester Del Rey (short story)
The Algorithms for Love - Ken Liu (short story)
Second Variety - Philip K. Dick (short story)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner) - Phillip K. Dick
Burning Day - Glenn Grant (short story)
The Dark Side of Town - James Patrick Kelley (short story)
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
Coyote: A Novel of Interstellar Exploration - Allen Steele

Schoolwork is keeping me busy as hell. I have two papers finished and one and a half to go. I should be studying for an exam. But I'm not.

I went for a nice ride with some friends over the weekend. My front tire picked up a nail and I had to stop at the Honda dealer to have them replace the tube. They were having an open house and I was lucky that the mechanic was friends with a friend I was riding with or I would have been out of luck. But they got me on my way (super cheap too) and I spun a wheel and won a full-faced helmet.

This weekend is supposed to be nice and I'm really looking forward to it...beer, bikes, God of War(?), grilling. (Bikes before beer of course...I never drink and ride.) The construction guys should be finished putting the new siding on my house too.

Our new pets...Oreo and Aida.

Books, Graphic Novels, and Short Stories Read Thus Far this Year...
Snuff - Chuck Palahniuk
Coraline - Neil Gaiman
Wolves of Odin - Grant Gould (graphic novel)
Dark Tower: The Long Road Home - Stephen King, Peter David, Robin Furth, and Richard Isanove (graphic novel)
The Time Machine - H.G. Wells
Twilight - John Campbell (short story)
The Little Black Bag - C.M. Cornbluth (short story)
A Martian Odyssey - Stanley Weinbaum (short story)
Arena - Frederic Brown (short story)
First Contact - Murray Leinster (short story)
The Island of Dr. Moreau - H.G. Wells
Microcosmic God - Theodore Sturgeon (short story)
Act of God - Jack McDevitt (short story)
The Sandkings - George R.R. Martin (short story)
The Nine Billion Names of God - Arthur C. Clarke (short story)
First Commandment - Gregory Benford (short story)
The Quest for St. Aquin - Anthony Boucher (short story)
Nightfall - Isaac Asimov (short story)
Surface Tension - James Blish (short story)
Mimsy Were the Borogoves - Lewis Padgett (short story)
The Roads Must Roll - Robert Heinlein (short story)
Helen O'Loy - Lester Del Rey (short story)
The Algorithms for Love - Ken Liu (short story)
Second Variety - Philip K. Dick (short story)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner) - Phillip K. Dick
Burning Day - Glenn Grant (short story)
The Dark Side of Town - James Patrick Kelley (short story)
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin (Currently reading)

Sci-Fi-nom-nom-nom.

So far, so good...A's in both of the classes I'm taking and I aced the last GEO exam.

Picked up Mastodon - Crack the Skye and it's quite a progression from their last album of what I can barely hear while I have it churning at a very low simmer. I miss when I worked alone for a lot of reasons, but I'd like to drown everything out with a wall of brutality several times a day every day. I've got work to do. A book to read. A paper to write. An MP3 player full of stale songs. And nothing will get done until I put an end to my ocd-compelled tabbed browsing. Must...close...Firefox.

A favor...

migraines and artificial sweetener...

Hell on Holiday...

Sex, Drugs, and Orchestra

Good-time Summer Fun...

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Gasoline dreams...

Crash carts...

Books Read Thus Far this Year...

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Greatest interview ever...

Weakened roundup...

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for the record...

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September 2010

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