Frank Bear's Blog

Big Brother SuperPass - is it Worth It?

2011-09-12T19:23:00.000-07:00

Over the past few summers, I have really been getting into Big Brother. I didn't see the show until Season 11 and that summer it was about half over by the time I started watching it. So this is only the second season I have watched it from beginning to end. Or 13 will end in a few days anyway. For this season (13) I actually sprung for the live feeds (called "SuperPass"). You pay $14.99 per month for the privilege of watching the Big Brother House Guests 24 x 7 on 4 different cameras.

I only paid for one month because I wanted to see what it was like. For most of that month, the $10 music credit was 'broken'. It wasn't until just a few days before my subscription lapsed that I was able to redeem my $10 music credit. Now that almost made me want to keep the SuperPass. But spending $15 per month to get $10 worth of music made no sense unless the Superpass offered some sort of other value. Big Brother itself is very short term (only runs through mid September), so I had to look at what value other than BB it had and it was pretty sparse. I could watch full episodes of 'Ochocinco' and 'Famous Food' neither of which has anything like the BB live feeds. In fact both of those shows appear on my "On Demand" choices in my cable.

So I could find no value in it after Big Brother ran out. Was it worth it for the month? Well yes it was. One thing though, it's a tremendous time eater. In the beginning it was strangely voyeuristic feeling. The houseguests know they're on camera and mics, so they act a certain way most of the time. However, if you really want to get to know the house guests better, the live feeds are the best way to do it. You hear many different varieties of conversations that you'll never hear on the scaled down 1 hour TV presentations. And you see an occasional "nip slip" and even a "peen slip" if you're into that. Yes Bendon's half erect peen showed in the shower cam once. Why they had a camera in the shower, I can only shake my head and wonder. Words are not censored out either so you hear everything; every F word, B words, C words, etc. Things that get BLEEP'd out (and the house guest's mouth gets pixeled out) on the broadcast show.

All in all I highly recommend the live feeds if you're a Big Brother fan. Big Brother is the only reality show that I know that requires their contestants to stay inside a house for the entire run of the show. Other house based reality shows (Jersey Shore, Bad Girls Club, Real World) don't require that so live feeds would not work very well. Other reality game shows like Survivor and Amazing Race are aired long after they're finished and obviously live feeds wouldn't work there. So Big Brother is amazing in that regard and probably very profitable for CBS. If you are concerned about putting a credit card on something and not being able to cancel it, don't worry. I had no problem with that. Although they did try to talk me out of canceling of course.

But the bottom line for me is that the Superpass was worth it, but I can't see much value in it after Big Brother ends this week.

It's a Real Life Beavis!

2011-07-05T19:51:00.001-07:00

Beavis lives! But is a lot more nasty than even the cartoon:

Dell Service Tag Not Found

2011-03-27T14:28:00.000-07:00

I recently bought a Dell laptop to replace my aging laptop. At first, I was reasonably satisified with the laptop. Computer no longer seem to ship with Operating system discs. So I had a question for Dell: how do I recover Windows if I need to?

That is where I ran into trouble. You cannot do anything in Dell support without a "service tag number". The service tag number is affixed to the computer; in my case, on the bottom.

I so wrote the number down and went to the Dell web site. It told me:

Our records indicate that your service tag belongs to a system that was purchased outside the United States.

I said WTF and double checked. Typed it in again, and same results. So then I let the profile find the service tag (apparently it is hard coded in ROM somewhere). This is the confusing and conflicting message I got:

The Dell System Profiler has found your service tag and express service code.

We are automatically detecting your Service Tag. This can take several minutes.

Your Service Tag is:
JYKV7P1.

Your Express Service Code is:
43449762997.

Service Tag Not Found

The Scan was unable to find your Service Tag

Please enter your Service Tag manually instead.

Double WTF. Umm Make up your mind! Clearly this is a problem.

Dell has it set up so that you literally CANNOT do anything without a service tag so this is a matter of concern. At present, the computer is fine, but what happens if I really need support or repair? This is my first Dell computer and my LAST.

Have your Bacon and Drink it too!

2010-11-08T13:38:00.000-08:00

Eww. Bacon flavored soda pop? Now I like my bacon as much as any other bear, but in beverage form? No thanks. I like the crunch of eating it thank you. And occasionally a strip or two on a BLT or burger. Don't think the soda version would work there.

Oh I do this love this quote:

Nailing the flavor was tough. We didn't want pot roast, we didn't want pork tenderloin, we wanted bacon. The drink started out tasting more like ham than pork. But eventually we were able to get the crispiness of bacon in there without it being overpowered by porkiness," Esch said.

Um Hello.. Pork, Bacon, Ham.. all the same critter. LOL

Bacon-Flavored Soda Sizzles Onto Shelves

Chase Bank Debit Card Hell

2010-10-10T15:51:00.001-07:00

About 2 years ago, Washington Mutual was taken over by Chase Bank. For the most part that change was transparent to we consumers - at least this consumer. Customer service at the bank was still good, they still answered the phone in a timely manner and they even let me use my WaMu checks until they ran out (which took nearly 2 years by the way). So I have not had any reason to complain about Chase until just recently.

But suddenly, now I am in Debit Card hell. Just before Labor Day, I recieved a new debit card in the mail from Chase even though the old one was not set to expire until February. Fine ok. I activated it and started using it. Then last week that debit card stopped working. I found that out when I tried to pay for groceries. When I called to ask about it, they told me Chase was going from MasterCard debit card to Visa debit cards and they would be sending me a new one. And they said they would turn my old one back on.

The next day I called and got a different story. That my previous debit card had been reported lost or stolen. Hmmm. In yesterday's mail I get yet another Chase debit card and this one is also a MasterCard (what was that about Visa mastercards?). I have not yet activated this new one because I have not received the new PIN yet. And once again my old one stopped working - this time I found out when I tried to buy gas with it this morning. Ugh. Chase, as Donald Trump would say: you're fired.

One Reason I hate iTunes / Ipod

2010-09-26T12:27:00.001-07:00

Oh noes.. he has muttered a statement of anarchy! Well it's true. I own an Ipod and have owned one for years. And frankly I have hated it for years. But why do I own one then? Simple, it's really the only music player isn't it? Apple has a near monopoly on the music player market and to buy a non iPod music player would be going out on a limb. Now I can rant all day about the Ipod itself and some of its difficult to use features, but I'll skip it and focus on the iTunes store. So let me get the main gripe here.

Dear Apple: Why can't we browse the iTunes store without firing up our iTunes software? The iTunes software is sluggish at best on Windows (no surprise there) so why can't we just use our web browser to check and see if a title is available? After all, the iTunes store has a massive number of titles so why not? So I go to Amazon where I can easily do that - ok not so easily. Amazon has its issues too, but at least I can browse and search there without using their software. This is really an issue when I am using a computer that doesn't have iTunes installed. In that instance I would have to INSTALL the iTunes software before proceeding. Ugh.

This really reflects a problem I see with Apple in general. Yes, they make some cool products and some aren't so cool. But it's the "my way or the highway" approach they take with their customers that makes me want to avoid them. But like lemmings we keep coming back. Often I will browse Amazon but buy the product at Apple iTunes. So what's a lemming to do?

No Qwest DSL For Greenwood

2010-07-12T11:53:00.001-07:00

No wonder Qwest is struggling as a company. They can't seem to expand their service offering. Upon moving to the Greenwood neighborhood two years ago, I checked to see if DSL was available here. It was not. This is the message I got:

Qwest Broadband is not currently available: Our network is continually being expanded, and we don't want you to miss the opportunity to get a broadband Internet connection that can save you time, help you enjoy online activities, open up the option to work at home, and more! Please fill out the form below, and we will let you know when Qwest Broadband becomes available. Qwest respects your privacy, and will only use your contact information to communicate with you regarding the availability of Broadband.

I filled out that form two years ago and have not heard a word. I just checked again and it's still the same. I initially thought that maybe I was just living in some isolated pocket that somehow got skipped. But I have tried plugging in various addresses up and down Greenwood Avenue and I get the same message. All the way up to the city limit at 145th! I can only assume this has been that way for at least 10 years. DSL first started showing up in the late 1990's and that was when Qwest was a healthy company. It's obvious they are not going to retrofit their network to expand further into DSL. Have they given up on it?

It's a good thing I have Comcast for my broadband. For the most part, Comcast broadband was worked pretty well. The problems I have with Comcast are mostly on the entertainment side (perhaps a subject for another blog post) but very few internet problems with them. It would be nice to have another choice however. Choices are good! So come on Qwest - get with the program!

Persons Unknown

2010-06-22T14:17:00.001-07:00

I'm finding myself liking "Persons Unknown" so far. Not surprising because the premise of the show is a combination between Lost and The Prisoner. They borrowed from Lost in that they create a situation where a group of seemingly strangers end up in a place loaded with mysteries and unanswered questions. They borrowed from The Prisoner in that all these people are taken against their will (put to sleep and transported to the place). The place (like The Prisoner) is a cool little isolated town in the mountains somewhere. Well there are only 3 episodes and that's too early to be calling it 'great' but it gives me something to take the place of Lost.

Do I miss Lost you think? Well yes and no. The last season seemed arduous and contrived. It's almost like the writers had written themselves into a hole and didn't know how to get out of it gracefully. But I do miss the lush Hawaiian scenery in Lost! Persons Unknown keeps my interest for now, but we will see.

We now return control...

2010-05-10T13:41:00.001-07:00

Over the past few months, the voice in this blog has not been my own. Unless you count the fact that I was the one doing the copy and paste that is. Every post from FEBRUARY 11, 2010 to APRIL 27, 2010 was the voice of Paul Schnellbecher who died in 1998. The series was from the late 1990's and told of daily life in a managed care facility. In most cases, it did not give a very favorable impression of the place but lest anyone think these places are sunshine and rainbows, think again.

He went by the moniker of 'PaulEss' on Usenet and provided a daily barrage of tasteless postings from his managed care facility. That was back when Usenet was a useful part of the internet. Had there been blogs back then, his daily ramblings would have surely been a big hit. So I thought it only fitting that I republish his ramblings in blog format where it can live on indefinitely.

So we now return to your regularly scheduled bear. I am debating whether or not to post a second of his series "Trials at St. Timmys" as the voice from the grave seemed to cause some confusion. More than one person on Bear411 asked if I were in a wheelchair and if I were missing a leg. I had to clear that up on more than one occasion. So for the time being, we are back to being Frank.

Eternal Rest Room Epilogue E

2010-04-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

============================

This is The Eternal Rest Room Epilogue E. I said at the end of Episode XXV it would be the last. This is the logical last because I leave for St Timmy's place tomorrow. Depending upon the tastelessness level there, there may or may not be another entertaining saga for alt.tasteless.

There have been so many colorful people in our cast of characters. Buzzard / Luigi / Damned Old Spaghetti Winder is in the lower hospital where he has settled in and is fairly quiet now. He no longer punches nurses nor yells Sonofabitch at everybody and everything. Ernestine's husband is still here, becoming progressively more grey in the complexion but still hanging on. She's been in the really hospital herself.

Dunno if this had anything to do with her getting off the kick of seeing that he had a useless enema every night at seven. He still gets crotch fungus powder in his mouth every day because he leaves that hole open all the time in his tardliness. The other enema freak devoted wife type on the other side of the place is still here terrorizing nurses and laundry staff. I went down this morning to be sure I had all my stuff back. She was there claiming some of the husband's stuff.

The preacher man with the Big Black Choad is still here. Stan the Man / Dirty Old Man is long gone to parts unknown. Stan was a mere pretender to outrageous choadhood. His nose is still bigger. Mr Salazar is still here and is noisier than ever. He began roaring in his hostile senility yesterday afternoon when his dignbat wife left.

He didn't wear out until seven this morning. And she wonders why he is always sleepy when she comes in around eight! Mr Salazar has the biggest pale choad I have seen around the place. Ernestine's husband reputedly has the biggest whitebread dick in the place, but I have not scored a view. Ernestine is always going on about his testicles to the nurses and about how they get irritated (as she plays with them). These old broads never get over the memories of the members they once received.

Stephanie, the occupational therapist, Disney freak, and queen in denial is still here switching that improbably wide butt through the place and holding Ding Dong School in the basement. Last week they put too much glitter on stupid little straw hats that got nailed up on the bulletin board. Crazy Lady, the head dietician, still can't get it right although the toast continues not to be burnt and we see less disgusting brown bread these days. The meatballs are just as foul as ever with scorched, dried-out garlic. The waffles are so rubbery they are their own slingshot. The kitchen people are still so poorly trained they slip me regular cola and corn flakes with sugar on them.

Alice still presides over the window seat up front. They gave Fannie Mae some serious HappyJuice[tm] and she now sleeps most of the time. But when she is awake, Alice and I are still fifteen different kinds of asshole and four different kinds of whore. Lillian is there still. Her feet are better and her mind is clearer. But she thinks she is at home chasing the kids out of the refrigerator. When I leave Alice, I always tell Lillian I am going back to my kitchen to cook. She somehow understands this means bye-bye for now. Mrs Yee has lain there for months breathing through a hose attached to a tracheostomy and peeing out a catheter. She never opens her eyes. The MediCare cash register just keeps chugging away.

Old Mr Black was transferred to another place, probably one which specializes in combative patients. He whacked one too many of the staff. Hazel is up in heaven still chasing down the deputy sherrif so he can arrest the bastard that put this tube on her nose. Evelyn is in the lower hospital, looking more grey than ever. She practically squalls Help! now and describes herself as Terribly Nervous. Her daughter comes to see her at least once a week and bemoans the expense of keeping her mother here. Evelyn may live long enough for this place to receive the entire proceeds from the sale of her home of 67 years and another house she rented out.

Margaret, Miss "Help Me, Honey!" can tell the angels about the celestial East Fourteenth Street that goes Waaaaay out to San Leandro and Waaaaay out to Lake Merritt. They took Fussbudget away. Fussbudget just loved to talk and argue whether or not anyone else was there. If he couldn't hit you, he would hit himself. Clarence's daughters took him away.

Maybe he got well enough to go home and not piss and shit all over the carpets. Imagine having to re-housebreak your 70-something old man. The once-proud red-bearded Scot we call Santa Claus is in the lower hospital not making a sound but still pulling out his feeding tube at least once a day. Le Chinois, who was our virtuoso shit- player, went back to the VA hospital. Maybe he can bombard some old drill sargents with his Hershey shells. Father Abraham of striptease fame, who thought he was Abraham Lincoln, is now himself emancipated to the great plantation in the sky.

Miss America was taken to another home. We miss her most because she was young and vivacious, relatively, and about as crazy as a loon. Her most endearing quality was that she hated therapist Stephanie, referring to him as That Queer. Jimmy the Asshole / Cardinal Frump is still here. He processes with incense and candles from one room to another because he can't stand most everybody or they can't stand him. Now he's in a room where he can be seen from the top of the corridor. So can his bleeding saint and sobsister jayzuz pictures plastered all around his bed. When nursey doesn't answer his sanctus bell within one minute (which he rings every five), he roars powerful benedictions such as What's the matter with you, bitch, you on the rag or what? Hallelujah.

My physical therapist, Neil, of pocket pussy fame, is forlorn because I am leaving The ERR. I want him to go with me to the new place. He can continue my physical rehabilitation while I continue introducing him to the fine art of faggotry. Resident Sawbones hardly speaks to anyone any more, though he did say Hello to me this morning. Maybe Dragon Lady / Dragging Cunt unscrewed his dick and took it away from him.

When I leave here Tuesday, I hope Dragon Lady stays in her hole of an office and doesn't bother to say good-bye. If she comes out to the van, I will have to throw up lunch and decorate her JCPenne' silk dress. Navy Wife, who ate the four day-old unrefrigerated sammich and got a classic case of Botulism, went home after her drop-dead cute son completed nursing assistant school here. He's going to take care of mommy forever and ever or for however long it takes.

One-Eye who used to hit up everybody he saw, visitor or inmate alike, for spare change and cigarettes now has a State-appointed keeper and is living independently. At least now he has some control over his money and doesn't have to beg. The last time I saw him he paid me back the fifty cents be borrowed so long before. There's a first time for everything, I guess... Time was when Irma, Corny, Evelyn, and Daniel ruled the lunchroom at noon.

They had THE table and looked down on all the rest of us tards. Irma left, Evelyn is Grey and Nervous, Corny sits in her room in front of a blaring teevee sound asleep, and Daniel lies in his bed comatose. Daniel is on his way out from AIDS. He's oh-so-fashionably thin now, barely skin and bones. He may leave here for the knackers before I leave for the next tardfarm.

Sharpa's family saw what a horror this place is and had the money to take her back home for private care. She was only here two weeks and hated every minute of her stay. Carlito went to the hospital to be straightened out. No, that's not a new operation they do on queens to make them het. Carlito is the one who was all contracted like a balled-up spider. They cut his tendons and things so he lies flat now. Very flat. El Tardo went to that big Marine base in the sky where my first ex, a true Navy man, can smack him on the butt during happy hour and say Let's go to my place. Mr Waters took both of his artificial feet and left in a huff. Dr Feelgood still does land office business writing HappyJuice[tm] prescriptions for all the new ravers.

MacBeth's Witches still hold court across the hall. If anything, they are getting witchier all the time. They are liable to scream and cackle nonsensically in the middle of the night. When one gets started, they all join in. Olivia just joined them a few days ago. She looks terrified. Her eyes get great big behind her clear plastic-framed welfare glasses. Mostly, when she's away from their den, she sits around reading a paperback and drooling on her afgan. Old Man Hodges finally got to go look for his momma that he kept screaming for in the night. Vivian, the big black nurse, told him to shut up cuz his momma was in hebbin and what did she want to be disturbed by him for.

Henry's down in the lower hospital still trying to get up out of his tard chair and walk off. He still wants everybody to Get goin', goddammit! Bobby is still there and has been seeing Stephanie some more though Stephanie denies it. Bobby popped another set of diaper twins he steadfastly contends Stephanie is the father of. He can't understand that Stephanie would prefer to play the mommy part. Bossy Bessie has nearly everything covered with her miserable Dymo label tape. Strawboss went back to being just another CNA, cleaner of nasty asses. This has been a one-year chunk in the life of The Eternal Rest Room and a one-year chunk out of the life of Paul Ess. It wasn't the best of exchanges.

T H E E V E R L O V I N G E N D

Eternal Rest Room Epilogue D

2010-04-08T14:22:00.000-07:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

=============================

Here is a synopsis of what a dear friend thinks of my problems. Miss Kooky, together with Mr Cheez, has stood by me, well, just like the little pome from grade school--

Friends may come
And friends may go
And friends may
Peter out, you know

But we'll be friends
Through thick or thin
Peter out
Or peter in.

Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 23:11:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: Miss Kooky
To: Paul Ess
Subject: Something else.

I am in a "down" state right now. Not my usual kweenly manner, so, read this and the preceding message as such.

I reread your long message. You know one thing in the back of my mind about The Eternal Rest Room has been that they weren't very institutional. In one way it's good because it's a more relaxed environment. But, a certain amount of "no nonsense" is required to make progress. They don't have it. There is no program there.

I mean "program" as something that is in writing as far as procedures for dealing with specific cases. Your case is not unique. Many have gone through the same thing you have. MOST places that handle these cases have a set routine they go through. You have been treated like a lab experiment in how to handle amputees. Like you showed up on their doorstep and they had no idea what to do with you.

They didn't ask any questions about your finances. They didn't have a clue about Medi-Cal or the other resources available. All they knew how to do was bill Cruel Cross til the well went dry. Granted you started out with the infection problem, but, when that was over there was no check list to monitor your progress. It was all done randomly. The chair/prostisis decision should have been yours, given it was about the same amout of money. I think the wiser of two would have been the electric WC based on your physical strength (especially after a year of inactiviety) and size. The main focus should have been getting you mobile as fast as possible and trained on the basics of daily living. They don't even have the in-house facilities you need (shower and toilet) to learn on.

The ERR was a ripoff from day one. St. Timothy's sounds more institutional, but, it may be what you need. The no nonsense part sounds good. The ERR was too much nonsense. No real program. Even in prison everyone has a program (unless you are a total asshole in solitary lockdown). They look at whatever skils you have and show you the options, be it educational or a job, and pretty much let you decide.

If you don't like your program for some reason. You can even get it changed. I doubt anyone at The ERR (including Le Toupe') is qualified to adminster you recovery. Like you have said, they do good with stroke recovery, but, that's it. That is a totally different type of therapy. Whoever sent you there from Coketown General should be SHOT (per Mr. Cheez) for either not knowing what was available at The ERR, or, for taking the payoff to get you in there whether it was good for you or not.

It makes me mad as hell that they have squandered YOUR resources and gave nothing of use in return. It's your business, but, once you are out of there, able to function with the basic skills you still have to learn, and are on your own, you might consider suing them. You have invested your personal funds (Medi-Cal co-payments PLUS) when there was adequate resources to get you what you needed available from the start if they had done their job for which they were far more then compensated.

There is also the mental anguish they have put you through due to their ineptness and the time you have wasted when you could have been back in the workforce as a productive person. You have a talent for computer graphics that you could have been learning for some time now and applying to your work knowledge if they hadn't been padding their pockets in ignorant bliss.

Anyway, that's how I feel. My friend has been fucked over by some scheister con artists and it pisses me off. They are sitting there with all the money and you're still on a bed pan. They need to be taught an expensive lesson. Something that will wipe those shit-eating grins off of their faces.

See you tomorrow...

Miss Kooky
-=[K]=-

* * * * *

See, this crap even gets my friends down.

As you may recall, I finally got a bill for the amount Cruel Cross did not pay The ERR. I didn't get it in time to mitigate the debt. I didn't know of the situation in time to do what I had to do to make myself eligible for MediCal, the state-run medicaid program, in time for them to pick up all the leftovers. MediCal has been a big help but I am left, they allege, owing ERR Corporation some nine thousand dollars.

I told the head cheese (or is that 'cheese head'), one Dragon Lady, she might as well take me to court where I will be glad to tell the judge I cannot pay that debt and he can send my one-legg`ed ass to jail. Dragon Lady (Dragging Cunt as Miss Kooky calls her) will never see it but I think forgiving the nine grand in exchange for the lousy rehab job I got out of these people would be a fair exchange. Miss Kooky thinks I ought to try to sue the uniforms off these people for what they didn't do and what they did do, which is drive me half nuts and into wailing about it on alt.tasteless.

Yesterday we went to look at two SNiFs, skilled nursing facilities, which are in the same league as The ERR since board and care places have turned out to be so unsuitable. The first place was waaaaaaay up in the East Bay Hills so far I am sure I would never have any visitors without them hiring elephants and a safari crew. The other is in the flatlands and close to public transportation and easy to get to from good freeways.

Hill Home has a beautiful setting with a great view out over the San Francisco Bay. It is also full of real, honest-to-Glub tards. I think I know how the acronym for Skilled Nursing Facility (SNiF) got started.

Open the door to Hill Home and breathe deeply of Eau de Tard. There were chubby little Downs Syndrome types sitting around in their wheelchairs doing nothing but grunting and drooling -- for real. I could just hear the screams and squeals in the night... They showed me the room of which half could be mine. There are no telephone jacks in the rooms. Bad sign. No internet. No whining to Mr Cheez whenever I want. The prospective roomie was a creep. He was securely glued to the great glass teat [Harlan Ellison] permanently tuned (no doubt) to one of two obnoxious independent stations which show horrible sitcoms and moronic cartoon reruns most of the day and night. Internet or not, there was no room for my small computer table. There was a physical therapy area. It had a set of parallel bars. They were set up right outside the dining room. Big fuckin' deal. No deal. Bye.

St Timothy's is a big place in a budded cross layout built behind several large apartment houses. The whole 'hood appears to be 60s/70s in age. It's all quite well kept. Here a visitor can park on level ground where I can wheel out to get into their car with no difficulty. I asked the man who showed us around if Evelyn #2 (from earlier ERR tales) was still there. He said, no, she had become too much for them to handle and they had to put her someplace else.

I imagine she got bad enough to go to the county phunny pharm. This is a good sign. St Timothy's apparently doesn't take in and keep every roaring asshole in town. As a matter of fact, the place was almost deathly quiet. Maybe they drug everybody so no one will give them any shit. I don't think I'll be drinking anything not in a commercial and sealed container...

The rooms are doubles and generously sized. The rooms have phone jacks built-in. I used my reverse directory CD/ROM to see if any residents had their own phone lines and none did. After visiting about ten places, this is the best I could do, so if I am unfortunate and can't have a phone line of my own, I will have to bid you all on the net. Miss Kooky will take text on disk and post it for me, won'tcha deeeeer...? The toilet is in a room large enough to admit a wheelchair and for me to slide my ass over onto. The shower area is not quite what I had in mind but it's workable.

They have a PT/OT department with a large, well-equipped room. The staff know their business and what they are talking about. There appeared to be many more orthopedic cases living there than old drooling tards. Relatively speaking, this looks like heaven. You understand that when one of the non-profit low-income housing managers I have applied to calls, I am out of St Timmy's like last night's garbage. So long as I give nearly all my monthly income to St Timothy, MediCal will pay everything else. So if you have any extra Presidential pinups you don't want or need, you can send them to me so I can buy computer supplies and pipe organ ceedees to feed my ghetto blaster. That way I can continue to entertain you with my continuing saga and also drive all the residents of St Timmy's bananas with "Dracula music".

Eternal Rest Room Epilogue C

2010-04-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

====================

This is getting to be a habit. I'd better just extend the main journal to 30 chapters. It's going to take that to get it all finished. Dragon Lady wants my ass out of here. My Cruel Cross quit paying for my stay in The Eternal Rest Room three or more months ago. Did they tell me I was on my own dime in time for me to do anything about it?

Nooooo... They started sending bills to Mr Cheez because I listed him as the person who could cart my dead ass off and crisp it someplace if I croaked. See, the mentation of this place is that if you are a guest here, you automatically and irrevocably have no goddam sense of your own. You must have all decisions made for you, preferably by Dragon Lady and crew for the betterment of her cash flow and to hell with your best interests.

This excuses them -- they think -- for making me the heavy for not asking them for what I need in the way of rehabilitation when I think it is their place to anticipate what I need in order for me to get on with my life and to provide it. I am going to go look at a couple of veggie houses to move to this afternoon. On the way we will pass by a major courts building, and I feel a lawsuit coming on...

Last week I went to see the Honolulu Holiday Home in bee-oo-tee-ful Onion City, which is away from the major metropolitan center I want to move to permanently. The place is a converted tract house in a so-so neighborhood which is more tacky than dangerous. It's the sort of place where years ago you would have encountered rediculous lawn ornaments such as painted-up jockeys or improbable flower combinations planted in whitewashed truck tires.

Now they string up little lights on the eaves similar to Christmas lights but in the shape of red and green chili peppers. These harmonize all year long with the maguey cactus or century plant adorning the whitewashed or pink truck tire in the front yard. The Honolulu House had corridors impossibly narrow for the maneuvering of a wheelchair. I couldn't turn into the room that was to be mine along with some other tard. I also couldn't turn into the bathroom which also didn't have a minimum 36-inch door. End of tour.

In a way I hate to leave The Eternal Rest Room because the tastelessness shows no signs of coming to a ceremonial close. I just got a new roommate because the old man who was here spiked a fever and they took him away to the really hospital so he could get his ticket punched. Once you have an minimum overnight stay in a really hospital, you qualify for another 100 days in a place like this under MediCare.

If there is anything ERR knows, it is how to milk the system. And since I can only pay on the low side of the prevailing rates for board and room in a care home, a step lower in care intensity from this place, I am learning quickly how to bargain and milk the system too. I guess we are all pirhanas at heart in order to survive. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth the soul rot the dirty and sneaky makes that you have to do to get what you need.

If The Eternal Rest Room is a tardfarm[tm], then board and care homes are veggie houses[tm]. I also went to see a place we'll call Eternal Life Veggie House which is in a much more central location than the hole in Onion City. It was actually built to be a rest home. I could probably get my wheelchair up next to the pot and take a shit the real way for a change. The showers were no problem at all.

They would even let me have my own phone line put in so I wouldn't loose touch with all the sterling perverts on alt.tasteless. But they wanted a hundred bucks a month more than I can pay, so no deal. Pity. I would have been such a good guest and wonderful window dressing for them because I am _alive_ and not sitting around with drool running off my face like a lot of them are. Oh well, the place was quiet. I only saw one goddam television set and it was in an unoccupied room and was off.

* * * * *

But what you really want to know is all about my new roomie. Ladies, gentlemen and tards, we have here an honest-to-Glub druggie biker. I say that will all due affection. He's a product of the fucked-up California public school system which didn't have sense enough to do elementary vision screening. He went through school for at least six years before they found out he needed glasses for nearsightedness.

Consequently he was pushed from one grade to the next without learning much of anything. He got into the so-called wrong (but phun) crowd and began doing weed and stuff. He was fortunate in that he could do construction work for his old man with whom he fights on and off. They have a real love/hate relationship. He's now addicted to heroin and is maintained on methadone which in itself is another drug habit you have to kick the hard way if you ever want to be free. I don't think Bobby is ever going to be free. He's had a common-law wife for a number of years.

She appears to be a steadying influence on him. I met her last night when she snuck in after formal visiting hours to bring him some cigarettes and things. He told me she hooks on the major east/west stroll in East Oakland. He told me she is pretty. Well, I didn't believe it until I saw her. She is quite presentable for her, ah, profession. Even so, she looks like a hooker in the way that the guests on most of the television talk shows all look like whores. It's a low-class thang; you wouldn't unnerstan.

This is all well and good, you say, but what is he in The Eternal Rest Room for. Well, he got a dose of necrotizing fascista staph just like I did, but he got his the classic way you get it: Dirty needles. I never shot up anything, especially not in the middle of my right leg, so I have, to this day, no idea how I got this germ and the resulting necrotizing fasciitis.

And I am just so goddam pleased to be marked as a druggie by virtue of an infection in the same way anyone contracting AIDS is assumed to be queer. Anyway, Bobby is lucky because he only lost considerable muscle tissue in his left arm. They put two balloons of some sort in his arm under the skin and surface structures to stretch them out for some reason. He gets pretty decent pain medicine in order to put up with that, and he gets the dressings changed at least once daily. They took skin grafts off his hip to add to his arm, so he's sort of not pretty in places any longer.

He showed me one of the wounds today. It is about the diamater, as he put it, of a shotgun shell and is gelatinous and green. The resident sawbones is going to start him on Keflex, an antibiotic which turns out to be very good for surgical wounds that give static. Mr Cheez got it for an infection after knee surgery when he did a graceful ballet step off his motorcycle a couple years ago. I got it after Sawbones's fancy IV shit didn't do anything but blow out all my remaining hand and arm veins. (Wasn't _he_ disappointed? Wasn't _I_ pissed?)

Top that off with the fact that this place is supporting his methadone maintenance program while he is here. Would you believe the place actually stocks methadone for use as a pain killer for old cunts with cancer and shit like that? It's a good thing Bobby can get methadone here or his old lady would have to do, ah, more business and get him a considerable amount of smack to keep him from getting sick.

And speaking of sick, he's had Montezuma's Revenge a lot of the time we've been "married". First he says it was the Ensure canned liquid "food" he drinks as though it tastes like something other than stale evaporated milk with chemicals. I couldn't stand the food on Sunday, so I ordered a pizza and shared it with him. I'm afraid that this time it was he who got the contaminated side. He was on the pot several times last night making an audio display of how tight his starfish is and how resonant his rectum. If Hollister could hear this, he's be ready to tear. I'd love to watch...

* * * * *

Mr Cheez and his new boy accompanied me in the ERR van to look at two more board and care homes, aka tardfarms or veggie houses. The first is up in the East Bay hills and is a rambling 1920s "Spanish" villa-thang with many single rooms and shared baths. I could deal with the room size and the shared bath because I would have had enough room to maneuver. But the corridors have up and down ramps to fit the hill the place is built upon. They are too steep for me to negotiate with a manual chair, and nobody is going to be pushing me around in that cavernous place.

Oh, and the joint smelled evilly of very old pee and PineSol. The administrator, their version of our Dragon Lady, took one look at me and declared they couldn't get a licensing variation to have anyone as young as I (52) in the place. Bullshit. I saw at least two other people who are more Down's Syndrome than old fart. She saw a wheelchair and didn't want to deal with it. It is becoming more clear now that I am being discriminated against here and at other places because I cannot at least hobble around. Time to call up some agency and bitch, but which one...?

The other veggie palace is a not-really-converted bungalow house with a steep ramp from the sidewalk up to the front porch. The kicker is that there is one non-ramped step from the porch into the front room. This is another situation where I can't turn to get into the bathroom because the corridor and doorways are standard and not reworked for ADA access. The bitch that runs it is a stone trip.

While Mr Cheez is huffing and puffing to get my sorry ass tipped up over that front door step, she is going on hysterically about me and my diabetes and do I take my own shots and everything. I told her I no longer require insulin; that I take a pill. She acted like she didn't believe such a thing is possible. The room was decent enough but the bathroom totally sucks soap scum. She tried to yank me and my chair into the john. It wouldn't make the turn. Too fucking bad what we did to the paint on her woodwork with her stupidity... Then she asked me, appropos of nothing that concerns her, how much I weigh. I went off. I told her 200 pounds on the nose. She opined that I should lose some weight. I told her that I once weighed 428 and thought I had done pretty well, thankyouverymuchfornothingatall! Mr Cheez reads me like a book and got my ass out of that dump before I could turn back into the BitchQueen[tm] I used to be and lay this cunt to utter filth.

Since we had a whole van to traipse around in, the social work assistant who digs up places for me to go to look at came along. We gave her the business for taking us to such obviously unsuitable places. One of the CNAs came along supposedly to be the one to push the wheelchair around. She would never have been able to do it the way this idiot driver person parked the van on hills. Mr Cheez took care of being my ass's motor, thank Glub or I would be in pieces on the side of some Coketown hill having gone booty over teakettle several times.

You remember CNAs? Certified Nursing Assistants? Cleaners of Nasty Asses? And Mr Cheez's new boy was along for the ride, too. When they came in this morning, Mr Cheez introdouched him to me as the new Mrs Cheez. I said Fine, I am the old Mrs Cheez and this cocksucker had better be ready to pay alimony. The boy is a decent enough sort. Mr Cheez will need to finish raising him along with fucking him or the job will never get done.

Kid and I get along fine now that I made him understand that, with me, conversation is a 50/50 proposition in which he needs to shut his hole a little more often. He left one of the tiedowns for my wheelchair too loose. When we went around a particularly cantered corner, I nearly tipped over. The boy will be punished for his transgression later this evening. Too bad I won't be there to participate or at least be watchqueen. I know, Shut up about all the faggotry and get back to the rest home shit.

* * * * *

Another day, another two places to go look at. The first is another one in Onion City. This time the neighborhood is almost upper middle-class, the sort of place where the houses have sculpted trees in the front yard surrounded by rock gardens with nary a wayward leaf in sight. This house has a nice redwood ramp from the street over the rock garden to a side door.

The side door opens into the small room which would have been mine. The bed was a fugly[tm] ersatz art deco piece of drek with a hilariously awful bedspread. The other door to the room goes directly into the eating nook of the kitchen. This is some sort of poorly-designed maid's room thang. On the plus side is that there is a cable hookup in the room and a telephone, probably off the house line. The letdown came with wheeling down the hall to discover that the bathroom is around not one, but two corners. Both corners are so narrow that the physical therapy assistant who accompanied us had to move the ass end of my chair by hand .

Since I have become rather attached to taking a shit every few days, max, I figured this place was not going to work. The owner then said I "had" to see the bigger bathroom on the other side of the house. Otay. Just come down the two steps into the sunken living room and down the main hall. Down the two steps... End of tour. The other thing that pissed me off about the place was the operators. They insisted upon talking in Tagalog to their paisanos in our party, leaving me entirely out of the conversation. I had to imagine the juicy conversation: God Damn Sonofabitch, a fat one ain't he? Shouldn't he have a wide load sign on that fuckin' wheelchair and an apple in his mouth? He can only pay $700 a month? What kind of a tight-assed piece of crap do we have here? The woman offered us refreshments and was insulted because I, as diabetic, declined her offer of regular Coca Cola and ... great big sugar cookies. There is a cuckoo going on in my mind which sings No-Clue, No-Clue, No-Clue.

Judy wanted us to stop on the way back at a place in Haywierd which is built to be a rest home/tard farm. At least everything there was flat. There was a big sheltered porch at the tard entrance where all the old soaks hung out in their powered wheelchairs to smoke. This place must be full of veterans. Vets are the only people I routinely see who have powered chairs. Of course, if you were in 'Nam and doe-see-doe'd with a land mine, you probably really need one.

The vacancy they had was the middle bed in a three-bed room. How wonderful. Hacking, coughing, nasal snarfing, and snoring in living stereo. Yum. The whole place didn't smell too clean. It had that faint aura of what I am learning to recognize as old lady pee-pussy smell. The john for the three-bedder and the adjoining room was smelly in an extreme. The toilet had a high tardseat[tm] over it which has seen much better days, with its tell-tale stains and steeeeenk. It is perhaps a good thing we showed up there semi- unannounced because a ranking member of staff was plainly pissed off that we just dropped in. This is a bad sign. No home should ever object to visitors showing up during reasonable hours. Not ever. This place is a possibility because it has its own PT/OT room and appears well equipped for my continued rehab. The throne rooms are mildly useful but a definite minus.

Judy is going to whisper sweet nothings in the ear of the operator of the first place I went to see, the Long Life Veggie House in Coketown. It is by far the best tardfarm yet both for location and throne room splendor -- relatively speaking. I really would like to kill the other PT assistant who went along to push my chair. Robbie has the charming habit of releasing my chair on an incline when he grabs to open a door.

He does this without setting the brakes or warning me to do so. Thank Glub he didn't go with us yesterday into the Coketown hills... I would like to kill the other PT assistant, Neil, but I want to kill him with kindness because he is cute as a bug's ear and horny because his old lady still won't give him any pussy even after he waved that digusting pink rubber thing at her. O to have been a fly on the wall!

Eternal Rest Room Epilogue B

2010-04-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

======================

When I brought the ERR series to a close at 25 chapters, I thought I had explored all the possible varieties of tastelessness hereabouts, but am delighted to find that I have not.

I think you met Luke once before. He's the comparatively young guy who got drunk and fell down a flight of stairs thus rendering himself quite brain damaged. They took him away for a while, but he's back now. In these relatively youthful cases of stroke and concussion, it is said they often become combative when they are getting better. Well, Cool Hand Luke can punch your lights out without breathing hard. He must really be curing himself...

Today they took him down to the Torture Chamber around ten o'clock to make molds for new prosthetics which are to stretch his limbs to improve their contracted state. Cool Hand Luke didn't appreciate the attention. He squeezed off a respectable loaf and reached into his industrial-strength diaper and began smearing and flinging his groganage all over himself, the therapists, and the room. I wondered why Neil hadn't come for me all morning. When he finally collected me in the late afternoon, he told me about Cool Hand and said the room really stunk for quite a while. I guess nobody got to keep to their schedule for most of the day.

When I went in to have dinner with Alice this evening, I was treated to a right tasty tasteless display. The ancient Chinese lady in the first bed is back after a two-week stay in a really hospital. The ventilator nurse was in there suctioning the old dame. Ms Inscrutable is never conscious. She's catheterized, and has a gastric tube surgically installed in her abdomen for feeding this evil-looking Ensure/SustaCal crap they have gallons of around here.

She's also had a tracheostomy and is attached to the house oxygen supply with an inch-wide corrugated blue plastic flexible pipe. Obviously her mind, consciousness, and personality are gone. A body is being kept alive because medical ethics say you do that whether there is any real point to doing so. Ms Inscrutable is the classic example of what I was describing when I said You can live life through three hoses if you are made to do so. Ms I is the sort of resident who is this place's bread and butter.

To avoid this fate, make a living will and be airtight and specific about it. Well, enough rhetoric. On with the tasteless part. The suctioning of her oral cavity was noisy and thorough. The old girl had a terrific buildup of phlegm, mucous, whatever you want to call it. I don't think she'd been sucked out all day. So here Alice and I are, trying to enjoy our liverwurst sammiches. For musical accompaniment we get all this juicy sucking and slopping noise. The implement used to perform the suctioning resembles a clear douche nozzle. This is a bizarre procedure to observe while wrapping our lips around great big juicy strawberries.

Neil brought the pocket pussy back and said he can't keep it. I dunno why. He doesn't have to feed it or anything. Apparently his wife _did_ see it and got upset, damn cunt. He said his son also saw it. The son is about eight years old and seems to be quite wise for his age -- at least he is impressively observant. He wanted to know what it was. Daddy told him it's a thing that helps men out and he'll understand more about it when he's older. Damn. I wanted Neil to sweat it!

Eternal Rest Room Epilogue A

2010-03-31T09:17:00.000-07:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

=================================

Let's talk about condom catheters. There really are such things.

If you have a big enough choad, places like The ERR can roll one on you and hook it up to the pissbag you will go everywhere with, shoes matching or not. What's really phun around here are the old farts who pull them off and then pee up the bed. STEEEEENK.

Neil, my therapist, was fucking around while I was doing my exercises in the Torture Chamber this morning. He picked up a computer blue belt of some kind -- probably some new strap to wrap around a geezer so he won't fall over. I asked what it was.

"Stephanie's Thing," came the reply. (Stephanie is what we call the really swishy therapist.) "Oh," I said, "I didn't know "she" had one in a designer color, and why isn't "she" wearing it?" "I don't know." Neil began snapping it furiously against this kidney-shaped table we call the Official Ding Dong School Table where Stephanie presides over the tards every Wednesday afternoon while they sprinkle too many colors of glitter into too much Elmer's glue on some improbably-shaded piece of construction paper. As he snapped this belt-thang he commanded, "Eat it! Eat it! Choke!" Neil may get more than the PocketPussy[tm] and a tube-a lube when Miss Kooky brings it tomorrow...

I was really bored today. It's Saturday and there haven't been the usual quota of trailer trash-looking visitors to stare at for amusement. So I wheeled into Alice's room to see what she is up to. Her "arthuritis" is killing her. All they give around here is Tylenol with Codeine if you beg properly. It dulls the throb in her leg bones for a while and that's about all. This must be something like my experience at the big city hospital with the morphine drip. The only thing it really does for you in that stingy quantity is let it hurt but keep you from giving a damn.

There's a new resident in the bed next to Alice who looks like everybody's grandmother. Her problem is her mouth. She called me, without provocation in the slightest, Asshole eight times. Along with that recognition came the admonishment that nobody likes me because that's what I am. I am also a whore. I tried to make her understand I am a mere slut; that I don't carry a cash register on my back (only a mattress) but this distinction was completely lost on her.

Then she warned me that my moustache is dirty. I asked her why that was and she told me because I had my head between her legs to suck suck suck suck suck til I couldn't suck no more.

Isn't she a darling? Ain't senility wonderful? When she just couldn't make me angry with her, she told me she was going to kick my ass up between my shoulder blades so I'd have to lay down to take a shit. I told her I routinely use a bedpan and so am quite well acquainted with this particular dumping technique. She has a right leg amputation almost identical to mine. Between the two of us we might do Swan Lake. She doesn't get stabbed with insulin nor have her fingers stuck for glucose tests, so I figure her leg whack was the result of peripheral circulatory disease. She was probably a heavy smoker. Do the tobacco freaks bother to tell you how nicotine screws up blood vessels or are they just whacked on lung disease? Miss Kooky brought the Pocket Pussy. We found this disgusting rubber thing quite amusing. Later when eil came to my room on business, I presented him with this gadget. He looked perturbed.

I don't think he had any idea I was serious about helping him out this way. He protested that he couldn't take it home because his wife might find it. I reminded him that she is the cause of his problem and he ought to tell her this is what she forces him to do because she won't give it up.

A couple of days later he did come and take his package home. I made sure he took his tasteless gift away in a tasteful plain brown wrapper, tube of lube included. So far he has not seen fit to take me up on my offer to help him use it...

Cardinal Frump was whining for another suppository this afternoon. His Eminence doesn't care for M.O.M. -- Milk of Magnesia. I shouldn't blame him; around the ERR they give it when you can't go and they give it when you go too much. Tell me how one compound can be good for stop _and_ go?

On my way to have meatballs for dinner with Alice and too much garlic as usual, I told Frieda, the med nurse, how to give the suppository to Cardinal Frump. Hold it delicately between your fingers just so, compress your thumb and fingers into an arrowhead shape, and RAM THAT BABY HOME AT LEAST UP TO YOUR ELBOW SO IT'LL DO THE OLD FART SOME GOOD!

Eternal Rest Room Part 25

2010-03-30T12:42:00.001-07:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

=============================

This is Episode XXV (25) of The Eternal Rest Room. It will be the last. The stories will get repetitive if continued. Not much changes here and, I suspect, in any place like this one. These rehab and convalescent hospitals and rest homes are warehouses for people. Nothing much goes on but the rent and the billings which are made to take maximum advantage of insurance payments or public funds.

Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned by anyone poring over these tales. That lesson might be: Don't get old. Plan on personal expiry before the age of 70 at the latest. I heard or read recently that only four percent of people of retirement age end up in a care home of some sort. Even so, don't get old. Don't plan on playing the odds. If you lose, you will be extremely sorry. Better to quit while you're ahead. That way you can leave something to your college or to your kids. The price for overstaying your welcome in this time and place is to sell all that you have and give it, month by month, to the establishment that takes you in and keeps the hose in your nose.

And this brings up another issue. When you land in one of these places, you represent income to the management. A care facility of any stripe is an expensive propostition. The industrial- strength diaper bill here must be staggering. About three of these is used each 24 hours per person, on average. That's about 300 butt doilies per day, 365.25 days per year. You should see the electric meter go round. I'm surprised the bearings don't smoke. And so forth. Therefore everybody shoveled in here has to pay his or her way.

This requirement appears to take precedence over the conscientiousness of care. So long as Cruel Cross was shelling out the big bucks, everybody was kissing my ass. They didn't ask permission; they asked how deep. Now that I am in financial straits and am looking to the county to absolve me of a debt to this place that I have no hope of paying, I am more and more treated like a whore in church. They want me out of here because they can rent the bed to a new, more solvent, customer in two seconds.

The horror movie aspect to the fact that you represent income to the management is that they have some really gross means at their disposal to keep you alive and therefore paying. I've seen more than one old person come to the realization that time is up. The first sign is that they quit eating. I don't believe they suffer from hunger or that they become uncomfortable from ceasing to eat. But if you are in one of these places and you try that stunt, you will get a hose stuffed into your nose down to your stomach. If you pull out your hose, they will put great big mittens on your hands so you can't. You will be fed by stuff in a plastic bag being pumped into your tube. You will live even if you are tired of it all. They will not let you go and they have the crash cart to enforce the threat.

The next thing you want to look out for when someone makes recommendations of places to go for a certain kind of treatment is the ethics of that someone. You need to look carefully at the representative(s) for the treatment place. The former is interested in getting you out of his or her employer's hair, and the latter is interested in what you can pay. This has been brought home to me quite clearly. The place I've been living in is very good for rehabbing stroke victims. It is a poor choice for orthopedic rehabilitation. They simply don't have the equipment or the knowledge to do it. But the big city hospital got rid of me. That was their goal.

Yesterday I had the latest visitor representing a board and care home. He was all how wonderful the place was, how it was a small place with three meals a day and three snacks, too. (Golly, gee! Just what I need to get all fat again.) When I began putting some sharply pointed questions to him, his story began to unravel. I made it clear that I wanted no part of television addicts. His business card claims the place accepts ambulatory, non-ambulatory and "Alzheimer" guests. I want no part of a place where there are going to be 24/7 screamers. There is enough of that nonsense right here. I've told you about some of them. We all had a good laugh at their expense. I live with this kind of shit. I don't find it amusing any longer.

He didn't say anything about bringing his lift-equipped van to take me over there to look at the place. That was probably because they don't have one. I happen to know the place is on a hillside and not directly on a lift-equipped busline. If I want to go out on an errand or for an appointment, who is going to hold my wheelchair back from speeding downhill or push me back up the hill later? I bet it won't be anyone from their staff...

He was extraordinarily interested in whether I had SSI, MediCare, or veteran's benefits. When I told him that I have none of these, he got a look such as I would expect had I shat before him. I told him I was seeking to qualify for MediCal and that I had a small pension and carried my own basic health insurance. We began playing a cat-and-mouse game of How Much Am I Worth versus How Much Do You Charge.

I decided that we couldn't do business. (Glub forbid anyone think of caregiving in the 90s as somehow charitable!) What he wanted for the basics would have left me with $20 a month for bubblegum cards or whatever toys turns the usual old tard into an overstimulated BetsyWetsy. There would be nothing left over for my continued rehab costs. They charge extra for anything above feeding you and letting you lie there in your Depends.

What is so disturbing to me about finding out how direct and mean this sort of situation can get is not that it is happening to me -- although that is pisser enough -- it is what this all bids for everyone else in the U.S. who has the nerve to get debilitated or old. I have no assurance I will qualify for state aid programs. Everybody "thinks" I will.

But damn what people think! That is not entitlements realized. Right now I am digging up wave after wave of documentation for my situation. The county aid office is never satisfied with the proofs they get. They always want more. And they give you three days to come across or they threaten to deny your application. The CIA should study these folks. They are the true experts at mindfuck.

I think if they are going to make having half a life so difficult and expensive, the least they could do is legalize suicide. Everybody ought to have the right to play the Monopoly game or leave the table. Maybe I don't like the players and I prefer to go outside and play jacks. So remember as you leave The Eternal Rest Room for the last time, don't get old.

See your lawyer and make sure They can't put a hose in your nose or otherwise prolong your life after you are useless. Keep every scrap of paper you ever got that deals with monetary receipt or disbursement. You may omit keeping mere grocery tapes, but not much else. And now let's have a final dirge from that new-to-us Hammond Organ before some tard spills coffee into the stop board. Thank you for reading. It's been a gas.

Eternal Rest Room Part 24

2010-03-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

=======================

Welcome back to The Eternal Rest Room, aka God's Waiting Room, for Episode XXIV brought to you by Professor Titherington's Pure Castile Enema Soap with Peppermint Extract. Are you lifeless, listless, and leaden? Just add a dollop ot Professor T's to your internal bath water or, better yet, consult your colonic therapist. Either way, you control the pressure and you'll enjoy the invigorating bite of the Professor's patented extract as it nibbles your rectal walls. After a good flush with Professor T's solution you will be kissing sweet and ready for that hot date. So always ask for Professor Titherington's. Anything else is just a douche.

When last we left The Eternal Rest Room, Neil had his ankles behind his ears and was tempting me to hop out of my wheelchair and drop on top of his form. Since the last episode, he confided that he doesn't get enough action at home. He made the wife have a baby and now she thinks they don't have to Do That any more. Some of the nurse's aides shop in a little store down the hill called Naughty but Nice or something inane like that.

It's your standard porno shop with the quarter booths in back and the sticky floor, but, this being suburban, they have to give it a cutesy-poo name so the hard-shell Babbtists can pretend it isn't what it is. (You know what a hard-shell Baptist is? The one who, when you meet him coming out of the liquor store, acts like you aren't there.)

Remembering this emporium, I told Neil he ought to go there and get himself a genuine PocketPussy[tm]. This sort of thing appeals to him because he can't get germs from it. Medical people are either paranoid or complete sluts, take your pick. Bertha is a big ole nurse who's been here since the year one. Bertha has the red hots for Mr Cheez. Every time he rides up, she somehow manages to be going to or from the office annex so she can make cow eyes at him. I wish sometimes that he would take her to the broom closet, grit his teeth, and fuck her for Old Glory so she can get it out of her system while he's pokin' it into her system. Mr Cheez didn't think much of this mode of charity. He called me a Cunt.

Neil knows enough to stop at the drug store and get a tube of KY to slather on his choad before he tries out his rubber appliance.

I asked him why he should buy that stuff when he can rip off the ERR stock. The boy is so honest it makes you want to puke. This reminds me. I need to nick Mr Cheez another catheter to replace the other one I appropriated as a gift for his toybox. He claims to have lost it. How do you lose an item which has only one function which is to be stuck up your peepee for pleasure? Don't ask me, ask him. It's his trip.

Anyway, I told Neil to be sure to rinse the PocketPussy[tm] with warm water first. This will get the dust out of it and also make it feel more like a real snatch. How would *I* know, you ask? Well, there is also the RubberRectum[tm] toy. It's made out of the same disgusting pink rubber but doesn't have that awful synthetic hair around the hole. The RubberRectum comes with a set of demountable 'rhoids in case you like speed bumps.

Big Mama in with MacBeth's Witches is having a hard time of it. Miss Stephanie, in her official capacity, has been switching in there mornings to try to get B.M. to do some mobility exercises. B.M. breaks the scales at 340 or so. She's so huge they can't use the pneumatic lift to haul her ass out of bed and into a chair. They get not less than six people and roll her back and forth to put two sheets under her bulk. Then the six people all heave-ho and risk hernia to lift and move her. Stephanie's had about eight days to nag B.M. so far.

Yesterday afternoon they were taking Big Mama from her geri chair back to her bed on the sheets and she warned them she was about to be sick. Miss Stephanie panicked and gave up his corner of the sheet, nearly causing them all to dump B.M. on the floor. Well, Mama chundered all right. She nailed everybody except Miss Stephanie, and now everybody hates Miss Stephanie. Goody.

Today Miss Stephanie sent Nefertitties, the dot head assistant occupational therapist, to "work with" Big Mama. B.M. had a total fit this morning and threw them both out. I would throw out Miss Stephanie because he is such an obvious fag, and I would throw out Nefertitties because I wouldn't be able to stand looking at that jewelry in her nose. Nefertitties is also dangerous because she wears one of those pointy Madonna-like bras and could put an eye out. I think Miss Stephanie is jealous because he has no tits. I don't think he has a dick either, but that's just my opinion.

Old Man Hodges no longer screams day and night for MAAMAA! Now he wants his shoes. Then he wants to get out of here. He was asking his nurse where is his taxi. He carries on all this calling and conversation at 90 decibels or better. I told her if he wants a taxi, I would pay the fare to get him out of here. Hodges is the worst screamer we've had here in the year I've been spying on this place. If they don't keep him quiet with HappyJuice[tm], they will have to give me some.

My roomie and I are having an electronic pissing contest. Last night I turned on my teevee to watch PBS and he turned his on to watch one of the independent rerun channels. Usually, unless I turn my set on first, he doesn't bother to turn his on. To his credit, he actually stayed awake through the first hour of crappy stuff he was staring at. I had to turn my set's volume up to continue hearing my program. He inched his up a little higher. I inched mine three more notches. Ditto roomie.

Pretty soon I had my set running at 80 percent of what it could squawk out. He quit while he was ahead. I was hoping a nurse would come in and yell for us to Turn It Down but nobody did. After a while he started snoring, so I called Nursie to come turn his off. I did get a little revenge though. This morning when I turned on the news, I'd forgotten to turn my set down again. It about blasted both of us out of bed. He didn't test me this morning.

Thank you for joining us once again in The Eternal Rest Room, aka God's Waiting Room. This has been Episode XXIV brought to you by Professor Titherington's Pure Castile Enema Soap with Peppermint Extract. Just add a dollop ot Professor T's to your internal bath water and you'll enjoy the invigorating bite of the Professor's patented extract as it nibbles your rectal walls. Be kissing sweet and ready for that hot date with Professor Titherington's. Anything else is just a douche.

Eternal Rest Room Part 23

2010-03-17T10:49:00.000-07:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

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[In your best Garrison Keilor voice] Welcome back to The Eternal Rest Room, aka God's Waiting Room, for Episode XXIII (23 for you [US] public school dickwads) brought to you by Doctor Diarrea's Pineapple-flavored HappyJuice[tm]. Do you wake up in the night screaming for MAMA? Do you lie around yelling EEEEEEE EEEEEEE EEEEEEE when you are bored? Do you bite and scratch caregivers?

Well, take heart. Dr Diarrea's wonderful HappyJuice[tm] will fix you right up. You'll shut your fucking hole and give everybody around you a restful night's sleep or an afternoon's peace. Ask Nurse Wretched for it by name -- Dr Diarrea's Pineapple-flavored HappyJuice[tm]!

They put a new lady in the room with MacBeth's witches, and, boy, is she big as a house. They ordered a new wheelchair for her. It's 22 inches wide. Standard is 17. Mine is 20. There's another Big Mama over on the other side. She was on the procelain throne as I went by, and somehow left the door open so she could see the passing parade. I think she is unclear on the concept that we could see in as well. It reminded me of the joke about the fat old woman sitting on her stoop eating watermelon.

She had no panties on and had no problem at all with flies on her fruit... Anyway, the sight of Big Mama was so riveting that I almost went blind basking in her puke-ritude.

Mr Cheez came to see me this morning and brought me a dead cow patty from Booger Queen[tm]. We went out to smoke (he does the inhaling) and Stephanie, the therapist, came swishing down the walk from lunch. As Stephanie glided (glid?) past, Mr Cheez observed, "Ya know, it's FAGGOTS like that who make FAGGOTS like us look bad." Since he was here, and since the strawboss of the nurse assistants (1) has been made upset and wet over his monster motorcycle and (2) doesn't believe he is gay and does nasty things with other men, when she came in to say Hi I told him to confess.

"Mr Cheez, isn't it a fact that you go up on Poke Street and pick up redheaded boys, take them to your house and do nasty things with their peepees?" "Yes, I *do* go to Poke Street and pick up redheaded boys and take them to my house and suck their peepees but, ya know, toots, they only have one peepee apiece..."

(This is the same man who lectures me on English usage: "Food gets DONE; people get FINISHED! --Except when he *does* them, of course... Strawboss just went insane. "But you don't look like a gay guy, and you ride a motorcycle and everything!" At this we both broke up, "BBBWWWWWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!" <-----Typical AOLer response. I said, "But, Strawboss-Honey, you've believed I was queer ever since I showed you my three-dollar bill!"

We have a new speech therapist name of Beaver. He has prominent front teeth and a goofy grin. He came in to see Lucille who's in with Alice up by the nurse's station. Lucille is a sweet ole thang who isn't allowed to eat because she might choke swallowing. But she's come around quite a bit and can walk some now.

They think she might also have recovered enough of her swallowing reflex to go off the G-tube feeding she's been having. They put a tube through her abdomen directly into her stomach. She gets stuff worse-looking than Ensure or SustaCal in a big plastic syringe through the tube. Imagine being fed chemical brew that way, not tasting your food (though who would want to taste that crap?) and later having to burp the old-fashioned way! EWWWWW! Tasty!

The Beav has a line of shit a mile long. He can bullshit these old ladies like few used car salesmen can. "Look at what we have for you today! Why, we have some nice ground beef, and some mashed potato, and some green peas, and for dessert we have tapioca!" The meat and peas have been puree'd into paste. This ruins their taste altogether.

"Now, Lucille, let's see how you do swallowing. If you don't have any more trouble, we can start feeding you regular food. Why, look at Paul over there, [I was having lunch with Alice on the other side of the room] I bet he doesn't have any trouble swallowing." Seethe, seethe. Watch the Old Bitch come out of the three-dollar queer. "Beav, where I come from it is considered proper to swallow and rude to spit." Now it was Alice's turn to choke.

Poor Lucille also has a colostomy. I think we covered that in an earlier chapter. A colostomy is a hole made in the side of the abdomen to which the distant end of the small intestine is connected. The colon and rectum are either removed or left in place to take a rest. I suppose if they remove them, they sew your starfish shut and Chris Murphy is out of business *and* pleasure... You wear a rubber bag over the ostomy which resembles a nice pink starfish on your right side.

A body ain't lived til they've breathed deeply of the vapors coming off a right ripe colostomy bag. Lucille must get very frustrated trying to find shoes to match the bag because she likes to take hers off and amuse the other people in the room with the glubawful stench. It will be lying there on her tray table and the treatment nurse will come in and ask idiotically, "Lucille! What are you doing? Why did you take off your bag?" And Lucille will sit there quite contentedly and deny (1) that she did it and (2) that she knows where it came from.

In between yanking various weights in the Torture Chamber this morning, I told Neil, my therapist, to stand with his back to me. I pulled up that rediculous white coat they all wear around here, trying to look like doctors, and took a good look at his ass. I told him to quit wearing such sloppy pants because they hid his butt. He protested he has no butt. I protested he would have a nice one if we could but ... see it.

When he brought me back to my room he stroked my cheeks and said See you this afternoon . This afternoon he was playing butch weightlifter with my leg weights while I was yanking the wall weights. I poked him in the stomach and said You need to do some pull-ups. He laid down on the mat and started in, making a face. I told him to draw up his knees and bring his legs over his midsection because he can keep his back straight and protect it. He practically threw his ankles behind his ears, grinned and said What's next?

I said Stop that and Don't tempt me.

[In your best Garrison Keilor voice again] Thank you for once again joining us at The Eternal Rest Room, aka God's Waiting Room, for Episode XXIII (23 for you [US] public school dickwads) brought to you by Doctor Diarrea's Pineapple-flavored HappyJuice[tm]. Do you wake up in the night screaming about all those assinine tales by that demented queen in the idiotic rest home? Do you lie around yelling EEEEEEE EEEEEEE EEEEEEE when all there is on a.t. is more spam and velveeta? Do you bite and scratch fools you cannot suffer? Well, take heart. Dr Diarrea's wonderful HappyJuice[tm] will fix you right up. You'll shut your fucking hole and give everybody around you a restful night's sleep or an afternoon's peace. Ask Nurse Wretched for it by name -- Dr Diarrea's Pineapple-flavored HappyJuice[tm]!

Eternal Rest Room Part 22

2010-03-16T08:54:00.000-07:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

=====================

Welcome back to The Eternal Rest Room, Episode XXII (22 for the Roman Numerically challenged).

Remember Jimmy the Asshole we renamed Cardinal Frump because of all the bleeding saints and sorrowful Jesuses he has plastered all around his bed? He recently took up smoking again after giving it up when his lungs went bye-bye. He has sense enough not to try to wear his oxygen get-up when he sneaks out the back door to light up, but he has to drag it with him when he goes to the john to grunt.

And grunt is about all he does. He often calls for the medicine nurse to bring him a pain pill (which I am sure he is getting off on) or a suppository. Oh, wouldn't *you* just love sticking your gloved finger up some skinny old geek's ass? His Eminence isn't satisfied with a goose and a kiss, either. He wants that wax buttbullet[tm] up there real high. O Joy! Maybe he'd like it if I stuck it on the end of my dick and rammed it up there for him.

Then there was the video some bunch was making here. I thought for sure they would want me in it doing my one-footed softshoe. What they did was gather staff members who are really good at making the peanut butter face and some residents who are balmy enough to say everything is hunky-dory. Then they put them in front of the camera and had them sing the praises of this place. The tape is being made for this joint to use to solicit business.

They will show it to discharge coordinators at area hospitals to solicit more business. Talk about whoredoms.

That's it from The Eternal Rest Room for today. Sorry it was so short, but you got a double whammy in the last chapter. Come back and see us at God's Waiting Room again sometime.

Eternal Rest Room Part 21

2010-03-14T14:04:00.001-07:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

=======================

Welcome back to The Eternal Rest Room, aka God's Waiting Room where I am undergoing rehab after losing a leg to an indwelling infection. This is episode XXI (21).

We can really have Hammond Organ music now because they got rid of the old Thomas bandbox that never sounded a single clear note and replaced it with a Hammond. I can go in the dining room and bore everybody to death with old Ken Griffin tunes such as "Red Wing" and "You Can't Be True, Dear". When she visits me, San Francisco's most royal Tenderloin queen, Miss Kooky, can upstage me with "If They Could See Me Now" and "I Left My Heart in ". Miss Kooky has to use the bench to play, but I am lucky. I can haul the bench out of the way and sit in my own chair. I can still play the pedal keys with my left foot but I have to sort of kick at the "gas" pedal because you are supposed to stick your right hoof on it -- just like a car.

I've been asked to explain more fully what happened to me. Here goes. In early 1995 I began to have a stiff leg. I figured it was old age creeping up on me because that sort of thing is common in my family. Pretty soon my leg began to swell, a bit painfully, and I had real trouble walking. I went to the local ER for a look-see. The sawbones on call said it was gout and wrote me a prescription. I took the nice pills for a week and had some definite relief. Then, about a week and a half after, the leg began to swell and hurt just like before. Back to the ER I went.

This time the doctor noticed some blisters on my calf and had them cultured. It was found to be an infection with a staph called necrotizing fascista. I had necrotizing fasciitis and it had eaten most of the fasces -- ligaments, tendons and such, in my leg to the point where surgical intervention was necessary. I had three debridements to clean out dead tissue and treatment to promote healing the three deep clefts in my leg. You could look in and see my bones and kneecap.

Sorry, no one had the presence of mind to bring a camera, and so no JPeGs exist. They assumed that dressing changes would be excruciating. I had a standing order for a morphine drip IV. Kewl. Someone told me morphine doesn't really take away the pain; you just don't give a fuck if it hurts. Since I was inordinately lucky and had no pain to begin with, I enjoyed the morphine trips immensely.

Healing really didn't take place. Upon admittance to this hospital, I had been discovered to be diabetic. Because of this, healing in my leg was terribly slow. There was only minimal granualating. The leg had to come off. I had a mid-thigh amputation. I've had setbacks since the amputation dealing with infections in the stump.

One required additional surgery which has sort of ruined the look of it. At first it was nice and round and I think an amputee freak would really have enjoyed rubbing his dick all over it and smearing it with his spoo. After the rework, it's sort of lumpy and asymetrical. Some of the nerves are mixed up, too. Scratch me on the outside of my thigh and it feels like you are sneaking up on my dick.

I have a practice-grade artificial leg now. I can stand on it fairly comfortably. I can't quite get the hang of walking on it.

It's been over a year now since I did any locomotion so I guess I have to learn all over again. I have to learn without the usual falling down business because I might hurt or break something important. If I broke my ass, Mr Cheez wouldn't have any phun until it got better. Not. Therefore we are going pretty slow on this. I can drive a manual wheelchair with amazing precision. I can, for example, turn 360 degrees on a dime. This comes in handy when ordinary (read: asshole) people won't get out of the fucking way.

After two and a half months in the regular hospital I was transferred to this semi-hospital where they do rehab mainly for stroke victims and not for orthopedic cases such as mine. The place is loaded with stroke people and senile old bats. Along with the so-called rehab, I have had my diabetes stabilized. Now I know tons more about adult-onset diabetes that everybody else on the staff. The diabetes education given at the regular hospital was quite thorough. I have several paragraphs on basic diabetes coming up. Please plod through both for your own knowledge and to understand some of the more juicy stuff I have to say after.

The dietician here for sure doesn't know diddly about feeding diabetics because she bans free sugar (sucrose) from our meals, yet has no concept that fats and cooking oils can be more dangerous for us. (Fat has 9 calories per gram compared with a gram of carbohydrate or protein which have four calories each.)

The scrambled eggs are cooked in a liberal amount of cooking oil. The sandwiches are heavily spread with mayonnaise. Grilled sandwiches are a miniature oilslick.

It's not true for all diabetics, but for me it is fat content that will raise my blood sugar above normal the most quickly. I can have a moderate amount of sugar without this effect. This is not true for everyone. Normal BG (blood glucose) on arising from sleep is 70-80 points in the U.S. method of counting. Two hours after a normal meal BG should fall again below 100.

If my morning reading if higher than 90, I talk to myself about what I did the day before to bring me up so high. Was it the Burger King Whopper for dinner...or was it the onion rings on top of that? I expect my midafternoon reading to be no more than 150 or I will give myself the same hard time over lunch which might also have been "foreign" food.

It's just sooooo much phun being stuck on a finger twice a day. You bleed a nice fat drop onto a test strip inserted into a digital meter which reads the drop photoelectrically. I'm lucky because a lot of diabetics are unstable enough to require closer watching. They get stuck four to six times in 24 hours. I used to get stuck four times a day.

They also will get insulin injections as needed to bring their BG back to normal levels. I took insulin for several months. My doses decreased to the point where I asked the resident sawbones to try me on one of the pills used in place of shots. The pills make your body more able to use the insulin it produces. Another type of drug simply "squeezes" your pancreas for more output.

Adult-onset diabetes is an immune disorder of sorts where your body doesn't recognize your own insulin as being there. The current theory is to flood the body with insulin by one means or another. This does not work for diabetics who became so in childhood. In their case, the pancreas produces no insulin and they must have injections of the synthetic stuff daily or risk terrible complications and death. Their dose must be very carefully measured and they must pay much closer attention to BG readings.

For us well-upholstered folks, losing weight will often improve our diabetic state. I weighed about 285 before all this leg business started. I'm at 203 right now. I'm trying to get back down to 195 and go a bit lower. I expect I lost about 30 pounds instantly when they whacked off my leg. I can't recommend this as a method for dieting. The weight loss probably made less insulin necessary for me.

The first two days I took The Pill were really bad. My morning BG was in the low 40s and I felt like the death I was near. When you get like this you get some sugar and you get it fast. If you pass out they will give you glucose in IV if you aren't dead or something. This will bring things back into balance. Now I take half the lowest dose possible. If I lose another 50 pounds and really watch my eating, I may virtually remit the diabetes.

Adult-onset diabetics can get complications, too. Diabetes of whichever type overloads the red blood cells with glucose, which is the simple sugar your body turns all sugars, carbohydrates, and excess proteins into. Without sufficient insulin floating around in there with the sugar, the sugar will not be taken into cells for combustion or for storage. The sugar will build up and clog blood vessels, veins first and smallest first. The overload will also affect nerve cells.

Diabetic neuropathy is the term for a kind of nerve damage diabetics get usually in their feet. Diabetics have to be extremely careful that they don't get ingrown toenails or any kind of wound or sore on their feet. Such conditions can be terribly hard to heal. Left to themselves, such wounds can lead to ulceration and gangrene. Many careless diabetics undergo amputation of one or both feet. Some get by with having their toes turn black, one by one, and fall off painlessly because the nerves are damaged and there is no pain impulse sent to the brain.

The clogging of blood vessels is likely to damage not only the feet and legs but also the blood supply to the sexual organs. Impotence is quite common among diabetic men. Other diabetic men are not affected in this way. I know of one who claims to be insatiable and threatens to jump on anything living that will hold still long enough to make an insertion. I take a while to rise to the occasion, and I am not as rigid as I used to be, but then I *am* an old fart. I'm almost 52.

Diabetes can give you a stroke if it affects the veins in your neck and head. If it messes with the vessels in your chest, you can have a nice heart attack. Diabetes can take your kidneys out and leave you requiring painful and messy dialysis about every two days for the rest of your life. We have several diabetics here at The Eternal Rest Room who either go out for dialysis or have it done here. Did I forget to mention blindness? The blood vessels in the eye are extremely delicate and subject to derangement by this disease process.

The usual form of dialysis is hemodialysis in which a machine is connected to the patient's blood vessels. Chris Murphy needs to get in here and explain how this connexion is made because I have never been able to stick my nose into a room where it is going on.

Another form requires the installation of a rubber catheter in the abdomen. Warmed saline is allowed to flow through the catheter into the abdominal cavity in the space surrounding the intestines. This fluid will be drained after four to six hours and replaced with new fluid. The old fluid comes out looking exactly like pee because it is somehow performing the same function. How would you like to be dialyzed peritoneally every few hours 24/7 for the rest of your life or until you get lucky and Stanford calls you to say they have a donated kidney; get your stank ass over here!

That's pretty much what has happened to me and what can happen to you if you are diabetic and either don't know it or refuse to take care of yourself. They want to get rid of me from The Eternal Rest Room. I'm applying for The Dole through the county which has so far lost my paperwork three times since I have been here. I'm slowly going broke paying copayments my insurance doesn't cover. My insurance carrier has refused to furnish me with a powered wheelchair so I can be free. They haven't even offered to provide a manual chair -- much less suitable to the way I want to live -- if I would just shut the hell up geek. I run around in a chair belonging to this esteemed institution.

I don't want much, just a life. My insurance held still to the tune of a six thousand dollar fucking when this place ordered me a fake laig thang. That could have bought me a helluva chair, one of those hotrod thingies made by Quickie with the four little wheels. They're the favorite of the gimps in Berzerkeley for running down residents, tourists, and punks alike on Telegraph, south of the UCB campus.

Aside from a chair, I want subsidized rent so I can afford to live on my pitiful-ass medical retirement. See, between the diabetes, the gimpiness, and my age of over 50, I have a popcorn fart's chance of meaningful employment. I could get a really tasteless job, perhaps. What do you say I be a clerk in a porno shop? I could be a ticket taker at the jackoff flicks. Ah, yazzzzz ... the Market Street Cinema, "Where Your Feet Stick to the Floor".

Actually, I have the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) on my side because it says that how deeply a person is PERCEIVED to be handicapped is as important as the degree of handicap. Most people would say I am pretty well fucked up. I know I qualify for tardhood among able-bodied a.t.ers. You've been really nice to me not to flame me out of the internet because I use my brain to entertain you.

I can still use my work experience and my brain power, but, just as they failed to do when I used to weigh as much as 428 pounds, people will not see beyond the obvious. Whine whine whine cry cry cry sniffle. Fuck it. All I want is a little help for which, in gratitude, I will be the most tasteless pain in the ass I can possibly be forever and ever amen. I expect there is nothing so satisfying (erotically even) as biting the taxpayer hand that enables you to scoot around and keep the rain off your ass. The food? Shit, I earned the pension. Stick Food Stamps up your ass. I shop at Trader Joe's and they don't take them.

Let's see ... I've got to redeem the lack of tastelessness in this week's episode. Oh, *I* know! -- I was going to tell you about some of our groganlore[tm]. Out in the corridor there is a pair of hampers. One has a beige sack and the other a green one.

The beige one is for dirty linen. The green one is for expended Depends. We don't use Depends here. We use some off brand made by/for a medical supply company. I have a hunch they will hold more and more virulent sludge than will mere commercial products.

The other day as I was leaving my room to go to Alice's to have lunch, I passed by the hampers. There was a scurrying sound in the grogan hamper. I thought at first there might be a mouse or even a rat in there. But then I thought better of it because I don't think such creatures could ever abide the power of the turds manufactured around here. I figured from the terrible stench coming out of the hamper that someone had delivered the ayatola of shitolas, the big poopoo pupusa, the bellyache burrito, and that it was alive and was trying to get out. Did you know I can do 25mph in a manual chair when I need to?

I only crap one every two days. It has something to do with there not being a single bathroom in this whole complex which is ADA accessible. I cannot get my chair up to a pot or even a sink in any one of them and so have to wash up at bedside and shit horizontally into a bedpan. Shitting in a bedpan does have one thing to recommend it. You are in a perfect posture to watch teevee. One episode of The Golden Girls and I'm about done. There's another grace to this form of evacuation. A CNA will do the wiping without being asked. And they go over your groovethang and starfish with a moist towlette and leave you kissing sweet! [Mr Cheez, are you reading carefully...?] I'm gonna miss all this fuss, lemme tellya.

Because I only grunt once every two days, I tend to give generously. I gave so well a couple of times that the CNA in attendance screamed. I always ask, "Pequeno, medio, o grande?" [Small, medium, or large?] One time she said, "Gigante!" Another time she said, "Horrible!" [Hee-GAHN-tay; Or-REEB-lay] The spaghetti around here is so al dente it is damned near indigestible. It's the only thing they don't cook to death. One time the CNA called the sawbones in to look at my talented offering. She thought I had worms.

He took the opportunity to say he had been meaning to see if I had an enlarged prostate. He just wanted to stick his finger in my ass is all. Chris, we've got to get you graddyated and me into your clutches to get this thing tightened up so I can hurt him back for the way he hurt me. That runt bastard has the coldest hands and the meanest rigid digit I have ever had the misfortune to back into. Be that as it was, my CNA tells me the turds look kind of strange whenever we have macaroni salad, too, and nevermind about the corn.

This has been Episode XXI in the continuing series The Eternal Rest Room. Won't you excuse me? There is a Hammond Organ waiting in the dining room. And I feel a song coming on...

Eternal Rest Room Part 20

2010-03-13T18:30:00.001-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

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This is Episode XX (20) of the continuing saga of The Eternal Rest Room, aka God's Waiting Room. We are all waiting for something. For the overwhelming majority of the residents of this place it is to die. You really can live life through three hoses if you are constrained so to do.

You can be fed an Ensure- or SustaCal-like substance through a hose stuck in your nose down to your stomach. Or you can have much the same effect by having the hose surgically installed in your belly. You can have a so-called nasal catheter strapped to your face to help your breathing with oxygen. Or you can have a hole made surgically in your throat in order to have air made available to you under light and regular pressure from a ventilating machine.

If they're going to make you into this much of a human appliance, you will surely get a third hose crammed up your peepee so you don't wet the bed in your tardiness(!) I don't think they can do much about your back passage except clothe your ass in industrial-strength diapers and change you every shift. Your poopoo will be semi-liquid and will smell just like babyshit.

You will probably sleep most of the day, and, if the rest of us are lucky, at night. You may take a fancy to waking up at two or three a.m. to begin calling for one or more relatives in a voice much louder than anyone thought your sad condition would permit. If and when you sleep, it will be with your jaw slack and your toothless maw at full mast. It's a good thing we don't often have flies around here.

Should your poopoo not emerge on a fairly regular schedule and be pleasing in both appearance and quantity, they will shove suppositories or little buttbombs[tm] called Fleet enemas up your chooch and you _will_ go. If those indignities don't get your A- train moving, they will drag out a big can and fill it with water and hose you with that.

Why do all this plumbing into every orifice? Because you mean money to the organization. They can't very well collect your keep from your insurance or from public funds unless you stay alive and they can show that you are in reasonable health for your level of decrepidness. A dead body leaving the establishment means an empty bed, and that means a minimum of $110/day in fees. We can't have that.

Remember the eggs Mizz Stephanie and her Ding Dong School attendees colored yesterday? The Easter Egg Roll was a rousing success. Nearly everyone who is mobile in or out of a wheelchair participated. Only a few of the eggs got run over. Several more were picked up with pincer-style reaching sticks and got sort of crushed.

And now for the possibly bad news: They were left out all night in the Torture Chamber, as we call the therapy room. This means that they, as cooked and unrefrigerated eggs, have had an ample opportunity to become contaminated with Salmonella, Listeria, or even Botulism. You never leave cooked eggs out unless you want to invite Montezuma to come visit you with his famous revenge. And such a visitation can be fatal to young children and elderly adults. The ones in between will largely throw up and liquishit[tm even as an intransitive verb!] a lot and wish they were dead. Beginning this evening, it could get rather interesting and quite tasteless around here...

This morning we had breakfast interrupted by Jimmy the Asshole who is more formally known as Cardinal Frump because of all the teary-eyed saints and bleeding Jayzuzes he has taped all around his bed. It seems the Cardinal needed to go to the toilet something fierce. He was yelling NURSE! at the top of his leather bag lungs. A CNA came running and got him and his oxygen mask into the shitter where he spent about thirty seconds to pee.

She thought he was on the verge of shitting his pants again, which is what he does when he doesn't get enough attention and wants to retaliate. The next thing we knew, he was celebrating not Mass but his blessed relief by taking off his oxygen and going under his own power out the emergency door to fucking SMOKE! Inhaling tobacco for many years is why he needs oxygen now, but he won't give it up.

I think my physical therapist is in "like" with me. He does odd things like pick lint off the front of my sweat pants. Yesterday he stole a couple of undyed eggs from the Ding Dong School stash and dropped them into my shirt pockets saying, "Look! Titties!" Neil takes inordinate pleasure in noting the muscle I am putting on from my exercises (it's about time all this huffing and puffing paid off!)

Today he was poking me in the sides where the sewing is broken at the pocket seams. My love handles in all their sheer loveliness were sort of peeking out. He liked that and found it most amusing. The really disturbing (and endearing) thing he does is hold my arm during certain exercises. It really isn't necessary for him to do it; he just likes to do it. Neil's been know to squeeze me in the elevator. Forget the maintenance man and the RN what did the nasty in the oxygen closet! -- this baby and I are liable to make the place rock if he keeps this up.

For all you folks who think black is black and white is white, here is a primo example of a straightboy with a knockout wife and a cute six year-old son who ain't gettin' everthang he wants or needs on the ole homestead. There's plenty of het men who find an old faggot like me to fill in for what they haven't got. I'm going to be working on my piccolo concerto just in case, if you get what I mean and I think all you filthy-minded so-and-so's do!

This has been yet another episode of the goings-on at The Eternal Rest Room. We won't need any Hammond Organ music pretty soon because I plan to be playing Neil's organ very soon!

Eternal Rest Room Part 19

2010-03-10T08:55:00.000-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

======================

I tried to be tasteless and didn't make it. But Stephanie did us one vicariously. She swished her not so little ass into the Torture Chamber this afternoon when I was doing my fake leg steps to Swan Lake and gleefully announced that ... They ... were considering moving me to the lower hospital. Oh, no! -- Tard, Squirrel, Witch, Bitch, and Banshee City! This is where they keep the really loud ones who have no medical problems. They're just goofy, crazy, or would run off and get run down someplace.

My Glub! -- I'll be in with the likes of Henry who yells for family members by name commencing at four a.m. His favorite line? -- "Let's GO, goddammit!" He reminds me of my grandfather who would put on his stockings and garters (this was a few years ago, before so much Nylon) and his hat and announce that he was ready for church. Yeah, he's ready for something with his boxers agape and his nether nose waving in the breeze... (Damn, why couldn't I have been hung like that? Well, it *looked* impressive to a five-year old.)

Or maybe they would stick me in a room with Clarence who stops dead in his tracks and shits on the floor. Stephanie told me that Bobby is back and is down there. Bobby accused Stephanie of being the father of his two twins to whom he gave birth by pulling out his diapers and rolling them into twin balls. Now Bobby says Stephanie has done The Nasty again, but he doesn't know yet whether it is a boy or a girl. Ick. It's time to leave or give up and join the squirrels!

So much for The Eternal Rest Room this time around. It truly *is* God's Waiting Room now. I'm waiting to get out of here!

Help!

Eternal Rest Room Part 18

2010-03-09T13:44:00.000-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

===========================

Here I am once again with more tastelessness from The Eternal Rest Room. This is Episode XIII (18 for the roman a clef challenged). Whodathunkit? --That there would be more to tell so soon?

Remember Carlos ("Nurrrrrse! Nurrrrrse! Nurrrrrse! Help! Help! Help! Turn! Turn! Turn!)? He's in with Mr Hodges, the one that screams MAMA loud and clear all the time. I rolled over to say Hello to Carlos this afternoon. He stared blankly at me. I think he is pissed because I banished him as a roomie and he is stuck two feet away from our currently worst screamer. But I have made a sensational medical discovery. I believe I know what disease Mr Hodges has that makes him so crazy. I hereby diagnose him as having Mad Cow Disease. He looks the type to be the one who, by himself, would have made the McDonalds sign chug around at least one billion more.

My new roomie, Mr Waters, is showing himself to be a bit of a squirrel. He has to run the glubdam teevee all the time he is in the room, interfering with my enjoyment of Bach fugues and highly Episcopal music played on university pipe organs. Oh, thankyou, Mr Cheez for the neat ghetto blaster to play it on! Why, it even makes those bone-crusher bass lines in [hyphenated-American] noise come to life! But I digress -- as usual. Mr Waters loves to whine at the nurses.

He always wants to be the first person fumigated and reclothed in the morning so he can sit in his wheelchair all day off in some corner, with his walkthang firmly implanted to his head, asleep. At least he gets the flock out of *my* way so I can run my fugues or some late-breaking nigg^H^H^H^H ghetto noise. Hey! -- Snoop Doggie can smell my ass anytime. -- He be cuuuuute! Anyway, Mr Waters turns on the teevee as soon as he arrives back at the room and is put in bed. Soon as he is flat, he goes to sleep and leaves his instrument of torture running for *my* non-amusement.

Stephanie is back from a short Passover-season visit to "her" family someplace in Whoregon. I bet "she" gets The Bizniss from them for working the occupational therapist streets in Californica. I also bet her family is glad she moved away so they don't have to watch her swish her way through life. She said her brother will not write a letter, but if you send him email he will get right back to you. Why she would think *I* give an Arizona rat's ass is a subject for debate. I told the bitch to get with it and get a computer. I even wrote some cognitive recognition crapola programs for her to use retraining certain of the tards around here. She managed to screw the working disks and then she screwed the backups. Now she has no programs and thinks it is all the computer's fault. Some people shouldn't drive, and some people shouldn't -- fuck!

The Easter Egg Roll has been rescheduled for tomorrow, having been preempted by The Tamale Pie Luncheon. Crazy Lady, as we not so endearingly refer to the head dietician/cook, brought in this strange-looking mush in a large chafing dish along with a pot of her famous chili bean soup. As she was dishing up this crap, one of the activity ladies was passing out tiny plastic cuplets of Fra Angelico, a hazelnut liqueur. Most of the biddies and tards couldn't wait to suck down some alkyhall since they rarely get any. (This is a highly unofficial act of charity and would, if detected, get her ass kicked as high as that there comet.) I, a person of breeding and good taste, set mine aside to enjoy after scarfing the soup and mush. Then I drank it and begged for a drop or two more. See, I was planning to perform a tasteless function. I have been sternly warned not to consume ethanol while taking glyburide, one of the pills designed to control diabetes. The combination is said to make you upchuck violently.

I regret to inform that I either didn't have enough hooch or enough pill to do the job. I generated nary a rumble, glubdammit!

Eternal Rest Room Part 17

2010-03-08T12:18:00.000-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

=========================

" MMM MMM AAA AAA MMM MMM AAA AAA AAA AAA AAA !"
M M M A A A A M M M A A A A A A A A A A !

M M M AAAAA AAAAA M M M AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA AAAAA !
M M M A A A A M M M A A A A A A A A A A !

M M M A A A A M M M A A A A A A A A A A !

There is nothing quite like a blood-curdling scream at two-fifteen in the morning to make you want to rise and shine. That was Old Man Hodges in the back room with Santa Claus, Mr Black, and The Buzzard. The back room is where they keep the ones who pay the least or are the most "difficult". Read that as 'obnoxious'.

Old Man Hodges will start up screaming for MAAMAAAAA! at any time of the day or night. Santa Claus manages to pull out his NG tube nearly every day no matter how well restrained. Mr Black scratches and bites. The Buzzard calls everybody Sonofabitch and punches pretty good for a 91-year-old fart. Now, what does Old Man Hodges want his mama to come back for? Hell, she's with Jeezuz having a much better time than she could coming back down here to comfort his sorry ass.

Welcome to the nightlife at The Eternal Rest Room, aka God's Waiting Room where we are about half and half people who are old and fucked up and people who are not that old, just fucked up and here for what they laughingly call rehab. The only thing that really gets rehabbed here is one's insurance policy or state grant. These folks are really good at exercising that and strengthening their bank account. Hark! Is it a lark descending?--

"EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE !"
E E E E E E E !
EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE !
E E E E E E E !
EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE !

--Nah, that was MacBethian Witch #2 across the hall. She sounds like Cheetah. She didn't get her pain pill on time and so is now going to make all of us suffer. Don't think for a minute that they would ever give her a morphine drip or something else that would actually do her some good. She will have a Tylenol crushed up into applesauce and be told to get over it. If she is a well-paying customer or the resident quack happens to like her, she will get Tylenol with Codeine. Whoa. Hard drugz!

So I ring for the nurse and have her shut the room door so I don't have to listen to this mad cacophony at full volume. What is that? Oh! It's the early morning groganage manifesting itself. My new roomie who is quiet and malleable produces byproducts between two and five a.m. He's on a milk-like liquid diet through a stomach tube and his output has a characteristically cheesy odor something like dry Monterey Jack. If you've never heard of gourmet shit before, you now have. I tell the nurse to check him. She does. He gets awakened and changed.

This is the blissful beginning of yet another morning. The checking of moldy old asses gets started in earnest about five o'clock. Pretty soon you can't catch forty winks for all the clatter of hamper lids as industrial-strength diapers get deposited for later collection by the maintenance men. The next sound you will hear to the exclusion of all others is the roar of a carpet sweeping vacuum cleaner up and down the corridor to rid the carpet tiles of diaper lint and dried groganbits.

Next will be the slamming of steam cabinet doors as breakfast trays are removed and distributed to those who can eat normally. The usual breakfast meal is enough to make you consider giving up eating normally. They don't quite burn the toast any longer. I guess all my screaming about that finally got through some thick heads. They even quit making the oatmeal so thin it would run off the spoon like soup. I talked everyone into sending it back the next time it was oatmeal day and they did that to it. Worked. Now we will have to fix the overpresence of scrambled eggs.

After the breakfast trays are collected, consumption by each inmate is noted in percent on a chart. (They also measure one's grogan output. I'm sure somebody on staff has a research paper going on how much stuff gets stuck in between.) The CNAs go take a break and begin patient personal care chores upon their return.

You know you are at last turning into an old fart when you like having your back washed better than you like having your dick played with. :::::sigh::::: Once I've been made beautiful (and it takes quite a cooperative effort), I'm up in my wheelchair and in front of the 486 posting trash like this, which is Chapter XVII (17) of the continuing saga of The Eternal Rest Room.

Oingo Boingo will now play the postlude. Thank you for worshipping with us today.

Eternal Rest Room Part 16

2010-03-04T12:06:00.000-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

========================

Welcome to Episode XVI (16) of The Eternal Rest Room, aka God's Waiting Room. These are tales of my stay in a rehab/convalescent hospital somewhere in Northern Californica.

The room right across from mine used to be a four-bed room full of old men. Santa Claus and El Tardo were recent residents. They moved Mr Waters from there into my room (after I got rid of Carlos for yelling all the time). I'm not going to flame Waters cuz he's a pretty good old guy who hates truly stoopid CNAs as much as I do. The only thing he does so far that galls me is he turns on his teevee and goes to sleep three minutes later. Maybe I want to run _my_ teevee! What am _I_ supposed to do? Suffer in silence through "Animaniacs" and other drivel like that? Huh?

Fuck no! Maybe I want to play a bunch of Bach fugues on ceedee with this nifty neato new boombox Mr Cheez went and got for me. I dunno what the Japs came up with to make this wild superbass shit happen, but whatever it is, it's good enough to crack your bones and deflate your choad from the shock waves. Playing "Weird Al" Yankovic on it is a religious experience. --On the boombox, not on your choad.

Mr Waters is tasteless in his way though. Today he's gone to another hospital for dialysis made necessary by the advanced state of his diabetes. Some diabetics get strokes and turn into tards like El Tardo. Others get fucked-up kidneys. Diabetics can lose both lower legs like Waters did because of poor circulation and ultimately gangrene. What's funny is Waters wears only one fake foot thang. Think about it. He appears to be chopped off on only one side, like moi. Well, Jeezuz Keerist, I know it's a subtle effect, but it's still funny so laugh, dammit!

So what did they do with the old men's room? They got three old women in a hospital cleanout and stuck 'em in there. That room is now what I call the MacBeth Suite cuz it's full of three old witches. That's what they sound like. Number One Witch I call Alvina because she sounds like a cross between Alvin the Chipmunk and a robot, "Yerrr hurrrting meee yerrr hurrrting meee yer hurrrting mee goddammit quit it!" Her bedmate wakes up at three in the morning chanting, "Pleeeeez ... pleeeeez ... pleeeeeez ... ladeeeee ... ladeeeee ... ladeeeee I need a pain pill ... ladeeeee ... ladeeeee ... ladeeeee ... pleeeeez ... pleeeeez ... pleeeeez ... pain pill." C'mon, bitch, give the ole lady a Tylenol and shut her ass up so we can get some sleep before five.

I don't hear much out of Number Three. Maybe she's the one who adds the toads and stirs the pot.

Five a.m. is the time when the CNAs who have been sleeping away most of their shift finally come alive. Between five and six they go around checking everybody's ass for groganage. Unfortunately for those of us with tender sensibilities -- but fortunately for those of us with a highly-developed sense of the tasteless, they find plenty. For the next hour you get to hear the grunts, groans, and ocassional screams of those who are being rolled from side to side. Along with this noise comes the swishing of industrial-strength diapers being exchanged and taped around bony old loins.

Next comes the slam of hamper lids as the rolled-up diapers with their groganage is deposited. There is a gigantic landfill project not too many miles away from here. Just think: In a few hundred years a company of archaeologists will begin excavating the site. They will open all these brown garbage bags in order to catalogue the discards of our present age. Lo and behold, they will find dozens of Depends full of gorgans! How you know this place is organized is that the piss goes to the water works but the turds go to the dump. Go finger.

One of the RNs finally got enough of flaming from Dragon Lady, the head cheese in this place and so quit. That meant another RN could move up to be the head nurse. "Bossy Bessy" has been going around with her Dymo Labelmaker putting labels on everything in sight. All the baskets meant to hold the cuffs for the blood pressure gizmos have little labels on them, "Please replace the cuff in the basket when through". The lid to every water pitcher now has the room and bed numbers labeled on the top. If Stanley the exhibitionist were still here, she could paste a label on his choad. Somehow I think that would make him very happy, he was always so proud of his little worm.

That's it for today from The Eternal Rest Room. Come back next week for the Easter Egg Roll.

Eternal Rest Room Part 15

2010-03-03T14:56:00.000-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

=========================

When I wheeled out to the nurse's station on my way to have lunch with Alice, I noticed Dr Feelgood, the shrink, out there going through everybody's "chart". Now I'll sound like Andy Rooney: Why do they call them charts? They aren't big and flat; they're three-ring binders with a whole bunch of shit punched and filed in there you wouldn't believe -- these people are sick -- they even record how much you whiz and how voluminous your grogans are and their color/consistency/strange odor! But the real sight was not Dr F and the binders as much as it was the few binders there are in the rack these days. The big bosses are going to have to get bizzy and clean out the big city hospitals and get us some more tards or we're going to be running the lights and the oxygen for less than half occupancy. That means the guy who owns this place won't be able to afford a new Lexus this spring.

As I was being taken (forcefully, in my imagination...) by my physical therapist down to the Torture Chamber, The occupational therapist with the best ass action of any real girl around here, none other than Mizz Stephanie "her"self, came sailing out of the elevator with a new batch of toys. "She" had plastic sleeves to be used to help put on socks, reaching devices, splints, Glubknowswhatall. Stephanie was truly in her element with all those new things to go bother people with who couldn't care less whether they get their socks on straight (or at all). This afternoon they held Ding Dong School with Mizz Stephanie and everybody pasted construction paper on top of other pieces of construction paper and then squirted glue on it and threw glitter all over. These objects will decorate the O.T. Bulletin Board soon, for Easter. I have no idea what these folks were trying to make or what these mostly shapeless creations have to do with Easter, Jeezuz-style _or_ Bunny-style.

Stephanie asked if I would like to participate in the Easter Egg Roll next week. Hey. The lawn is all torn up. Where are we going to roll eggs? How are we going to hunt for them? In wheel chairs? Surely you jest. Oh. We'll use reaching sticks to pick them up from their hiding places all around the public rooms on the first floor. How swell. Maybe a fourth of the residents actually _see_ well enough to spot a colored egg at six feet. This'll be like shooting fish in a barrel. I'll be able to grab a dozen before anybody knows what's going on and give myself terminal cholesterol! Reacher sticks are fun. They have a full hand grip on one end and pincer jaws at the other. They will pick up damn near anything you drop in your tardliness[tm from a business card to a pound jar of contraband preserves designed to make toast spread with industrial-grade margarine palatable.

Today let's meet Lillian. Lillian is a resident in Alice's room.

Lillian has mostly lain there not doing or saying much except absorbing nutrition through a tube run directly into her stomach. (Some folks come here after their stroke with an abdominal hookup for feeding.) She also has a catheter in her snatch to take care of the lemonade factory, and has the extra added bonus of a colostomy! They give you a colostomy if your large intestine needs a rest or needs to be removed. If they remove it, they sew up your chocolate starfish and you never get to use that again, even for sodomy. No, they do not equip it with a glass eye so you can be the life of the party cracking a smile and saying Here's Looking at You. What you end up with is a bubblegum starfish on your right side. They put a rubber gasket around that with a special waterproof cement. Then they clap on a rubber bag so that your constant LiquiShit[tm] output has someplace to go.

Lillian likes to detach her rubber bag. I think she is upset because she can't get them to give her a bag to match her shoes. You have not truly tastelessly lived until you have smelled the unholy stench of an open colostomy bag or the spilled contents thereof. One evening last week when Lillian Did Her Number, Alice scratched on the glass at me as though she were a microwaved baby on speed, warning me not to come in the room. I got six feet from the door and turned around quickly. The stank was that bad. Glub. They just painted that room two months ago, and here Lillian is trying to peel the paint already!

This has been Chapter XV (15) of the continuing saga of The Eternal Rest Home -- I mean, Room, aka God's Waiting Room. We need a new organist. Anyone care to apply? Hell, we need a new organ. What am I saying? -- half the guys _here_ need a new organ because about ten percent of the horny old biddies in here won't let them alone!

Eternal Rest Room Part 14

2010-03-01T09:20:00.001-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

======================

This is the latest installment of drama from The Eternal Rest Room aka God's Waiting Room, where I am being rehabbed. As I keep telling these idiot nurses, don't treat me like a tard; I lost a leg and not most of my mind. Being quite well plugged into the grapevine and having fully-correctable vision, I hear all, see all, and know nearly all...

Still more news on El Tardo. Yesterday afternoon he was yelling for more ice cream / soda / ice water / a hamburger, so they gave him something to eat or drink which he promptly upchucked. This was too much for the resident sawbones who swiftly ordered an NG tube for the poor boy. NG means nasal-gastric. They're a classic accessory among the geriatric set this season, this having a hose in your nose that goes down your esophagus into your stomach. After you get one of these it doesn't matter what kind of swill the kitchen is dishing up today; you won't be having any. You'll be attached to a plastic bag on an IV stand into which they will pour water and one of several Ensure-like canned food substances. An in-line pump through which your feeding tube passes will maintain a steady drip-drip-drip of this brew into your gutty-wutties.

NG tubes are fun even for the people who don't have one. They get to listen to the pumpthang start beeping ferociously when the bag in empty. This always happens around two a.m. just after the squirrel down the hall has quit yelling for MAMA at the top of his lungs. (He has great lungs but the rest of him is totally fucked up.) If we are truly blessed, we will get to see some old tard remove the tape from his face that holds the tube as it enters his snoot and then begin pulling the tube out. Repeat offenders get great big mittens put on whichever of their hands still works after the stroke. Tard will let the tube dangle and watch contentedly as the food substance dribbles all over him and/or the bed and/or the floor. Nursy just loves cleaning all this shit up. There goes the squirrel down the hall again, wanting Mama. One of our more libertine Flo Nightingales just went down there and said, "Yo mama be in hebbin; shut up!"

Anyway, back to El Tardo. While they were sticking the hose in his snout and trying to get him to swallow swallow swallow so it would go down his throat properly, he's gagging and coughing and generally fighting the whole thing. (I had one once and they aren't that bad. You think they'll choke you to death but if you do what you're told it's fine. After five minutes you hardly know the thing is there.) Quoth El Tardo, "I'm GAAAAAAAGGING! AAAAAAAAAH! You're CHOOOOOKING me! It HUUUUUUURTS! Take it OWWWWWWWT!" Pretty soon they had him fixed up and his baggie loaded with delicious SustaCal or something. Okay, baby, the onliest way you're gonna get a Big Mac is if they cram it through this hose for ya...

If your visitors bring you in food you shouldn't have, like way too much cheese, and you get blocked up like an old crypt, then they hang a very similar bag and tube for your enema. They take a 1000cc bag of saline and throw its pillow-like self into a microwave to heat it up to 105 F and then hang it up for you to absorb. There are some lucky folkez around here who have a urinary catheter, an NG tube, and who get daily enemas. You can live life through three hoses if you are made to.

Pretty soon Tardo settled down. His mommy has been hanging around most of the day since he's been here. He's the forty- something Viet Nam vet with uncontrolled diabetes which apparently gave him a stroke. The stroke gave him the personality and patience of a five year-old, hence all the peculiar yelling and whining he does. I guess mommy had enough of him for one day because she soon after went home. Meanwhile I wheeled over to Alice's room to tell her the latest news and to eat what they laughingly call dinner. No sooner were we finished making faces at the cuisine than bells started ringing and announcements were made for everybody with a lick of sense to get their asses over to Tardo's room.

Tardo has literally busted a gut. And, Glubdammit, I didn't get to see a thing! His acute problem was liver disease that had distended his belly to the size of a full-term pregnancy of triplets. (Chris Murphy, have you been over here testing poopchutes with your personal imaging tool...?) (If so, you missed me, and I want you in the worst way.) So here lay poor Tardo with blood dripping out of every orifice. It was coming out of one ear. It was coming out his nose and mouth. He was gagging and choking and pretty soon passed out.

We were glad that mommy had gone bye-bye earlier. No, it would not have been tasteless for her to see this; it would have been just plain horrible. And that's why I am so damn mad I didn't get to see anything! It would have been my first dramatic death! When they just slip away it's no fun at all! Tardo wasn't content to ruin the pillow and his hospital gown, now he started shitting blood as well. He nearly completely exsanguinated before their very eyes -- if the tale wasn't exaggerated for my whacked-out benefit. So everybody is in there mopping up and getting ready for the undertaker.

Alice usually gets to see people come in and bodies leave because she's right up front, but this time she'd dozed off and missed the whole thing. Boy, is she pissed! Yeah, we're desperate for entertainment around here. If you don't like it, c'mon over and do your hoochy-koochy for us next Sunday afternoon. Hell, we'll watch anything (if we can stay awake). Otherwise, just get your ass over there on that Hammond Organ bench and start wailin' cuz this has been yet another chapter in the ongoing saga of The Eternal Rest Room also known as God's Waiting Room.

Eternal Rest Room Part 13

2010-02-28T09:02:00.001-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

================================

I'm Baaaaaaack... The peglaigthang went well this morning. I stood on it until my real leg hurt. Maybe next week I can take some honest-to- Glub steps. Ain't it funny how my real leg hurts but the fake one don't...?

Anyway, after I got rid of The Buzzard as a roomie, they brought in Carlos, another grizzled little Latino oldster, the kind of roomie I enjoy having if I must have one at all. I still fondly remember Pedro. He was so emaciated and cute. I wanted to taste his great big bushy moustache, but I restrained myself figuring he wouldn't go for any of this late 20th Century queer nonsense. Carlos is what they call "contracted" You could save airfare and ship him in a six cubic-foot box and a little bubblepack. His legs and arms are drawn up close to his body. He can't move around in bed, and this is the point over which we had, alas, to part company.

Twenty-four hours a day he would call "Nurrrrrse. Nurrrrrse. Nurrrrrse. Help. Help. Help. Turn. Turn. Turn." They had a schedule for turning him in bed every two hours, day and night. But he wanted to be turned every five to ten minutes. Carlos is another diabetic who let his body get out of hand. He has terrible ulcers on his legs and a good-sized bed sore on his back. I suppose he can't get relief from his discomfort no matter what he does or how he is moved. But his constant begging for assistance kept me awake as thoroughly as El Tardo does now. So I had to get rid of him. The HappyJuice[tm] The Buzzard gets is working so well that I told the office zombies I would take Buzzard back if they would move Carlos someplace else. Remember Carlos when you decide how not to do the healthythang. Opt for a quick heart attack and not for a stroke which can turn you into something that looks like a spider recently bashed by a rolled-up newspaper.

Right now I am roomie-less. I can close the door to the room and have relative peace and quiet. It won't last long. They'll soon march over the hill and clean out the storage wards at the county hospital and bring in another load of squirrels. Did you ever think there was a line of work (other than PR) in which you could be paid to tell blatant lies? Try hospital discharge coordinator. I'm sure all the big city hospitals call this place up when they have a storage case and lie lie lie about how wonderful the person is. Then when the ambulance drags their sorry ass over here, they turn into something that needs a muzzle and a cage.

Well, Miss Kooky is here to help me bide a wee and also go get lunch from the Real World so I don't have to eat "healthy" crap. Start up your own Hammond Organ music once again as we leave The Eternal Rest Room aka God's Waiting Room for another day.

I'll be back soon. Count on it.

Eternal Rest Room Part 12

2010-02-27T06:26:00.000-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

============================

"Nuuurrrrrrrrrse! Nuuurrrrrrrrrse! Nuuurrrrrrrrrse!"

"What do you want?"

"C'meeeeeeere!"

"What do you _want_?"

"C'MEEEEEEERE!"

"Okay ... what do you want?"

"I want some ice cream / soda pop / ice water / orange juice / the urinal."

Welcome to Chapter 12 ('XII' for you classicists) of The Eternal Rest Room where I tell you the continuing saga of my stay in a rehab hospital somewhere in Northern Californica.

You have just met El Tardo. E.T. is late forty-something and a Viet Nam veteran. While overseas he had the misfortune to have something nasty blow up in his face and thereby lose both eyes. One day when he was yelling for the "Nuuurrrrrrrse" I took pity on him and wheeled in his room to ask what was the matter. He wanted the urinal. Joy. Drinking lots of soda pop is like drinking lots of beer. You only rent it and never have equity in it. As usual, there was no nurse around because everybody is tired of E.T. yelling every five minutes for whatever.

E.T. had his hospital gown up over his tits and I got a full view of all his scars from the apparent explosion in which he had participated. He being blind and all, and furnished with two of the darkest brown glass eyes I have ever had the creepiness to behold, I made sure to hand him the pisspot with the handle up and the cap popped free so there wouldn't be an accident. I figured he could take it from there as I was not about to load his choad into the maw of the pisspot. After he was done I took the pot from him and hanged it on the side of the bed. One of the CNAs [Clean Nasty Asses] could come empty it as I am no relation to Florence Nightingale; I only want a cheap shot look at his dick. I am pleased to tastelessly report that it is smaller and uglier than mine is.

E.T. is also a serious diabetic, which is why they won't give him ice cream / soda pop / orange juice / etc unless it is the dietary stuff. Now the med cart nurse has taken to bargaining with him in the matter of taking his insulin shots. "Tardo, if you take your medicine, I'll give you some ice cream." "Nooooooooooo!!!" "Do you want some soda pop then?" "Yeeeeesss!" "Here, take your medicine." "Nooooooo, I don't want that!" An insulin shot hardly qualifies as an injection, the needle is so short and small. I stuck myself with NPH for months until I found out I could get along on Glyburide, one of the pills.

As a consequence of E.T.'s reluctance to take his insulin, he's seriously "out of control". His high blood sugar is probably what rotted his blood vessels to the point of his having a premature stroke. The stroke has changed him into a virtual five year-old. They even put him up in a tard chair and put a bib on him so he doesn't drool all over. Lucky me, I get to listen to him yell "Nuuurrrrrrrssse!" til two- thirty in the morning a lot. They should be giving him knock-out potion, but, in this case, I would be glad to take it myself.

Do you remember The Buzzard? I got rid of him. First they put him straight across the hall in one of the most blindingly sunny rooms in the whole place. Now, Buzzard hates light like Glub hates sin. Buzzard was constantly yelling "Turn the lights out! Turn the lights out! Turn the lights out, you sonofabitches!" This is the spot which El Tardo occupies now. Go figure: They put a blind man in the brightest room. They put a person who hates light in a bright room. Next they put Buzzard in the darkest room in the place. He's been pretty happy and quiet since. All he does now is piss and shit up the bed like a six month-old.

They also had Jimmy the Asshole in with Buzzard in the dark room. Buzzard hollered so much Jimmy threatened to put his oxygen mask on the long hose and go over and beat the shit out of Buzzard. So they moved Jimmy one over where he manages to get himself into the bathroom to take a groganbreak but can't get back up off the pot without assistance. Sometimes the CNAs just leave him there because they know where to find him when they want him :) And when he's stuck in the john, he can't sneak out the side door and smoke -- a habit he's taken up after years of smoking fucked his lungs severely and now that he is on an oxygen mask and can blow us all up, he's back doing it again.

Go finger...

Well, my therapist has come to take me to the Torture Chamber where I will practice using my new artificial peglaigthang. Today I think we will go through the steps of Swan Lake.

More later. That's a threat...

Eternal Rest Room Part 11

2010-02-22T13:23:00.000-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

===========================

Well, "Stephanie" (as we refer to this colossally queenly therapist) is downstairs holding Ding Dong School for all the tards. I guess technically I am also a tard because I am an amputee. Well, if you can't stand tards who can't walk but who can write and tell you tasteless things about rest homes, then bite me. But I digress. Stephanie will have them coloring and cutting construction paper and getting glue and glitter all over the place.

The results will be posted on the occupational therapy bulletin board (heavy on the 'bull') to show visitors and prospective customers who want to park their creeky relatives someplace out of sight, just how multi-faceted the joint is.

This hot shit just in: Seems ole One-Eye got caught off premises by the local constabulary. He, of all people, ought to know better. The story on him is that he got beat severely by the kopnazis in a nearby burb and successfully sued that city's givvermint for a lifetime grant of four grand a month (on which I could live most stylishly if it were mine). Don't know if his eye rolled into the gutter during that disagreement or if he gave that item up earlier. Anyway, he's pretty fucked up. He's unable to swallow reliably (although I have never known him to spit either) and so has a direct line into his stomachthang. He gets a special Ensure-like brew three times a day.

I have never heard him complain about the taste... He's also a serious alky who can't give it up for the duration. Another inmate in this asylum received a bottle of pretty good brandy for Xmas. The bottle disappeared. One Eye was going round the place wrecklessly driving a wheelchair, so draw your own conclusions. He may be a tard but he's not stoopid. He knows where to get a feeding syringe and how to pump what he wants into his belly and enjoy!

I would consider One Eye faintly amusing and far more colorful than the average comatose case around here except that he has a habit which may make him more tasteless than I am. He bums cigarettes and spare change from anyone he sees around the place who has not turned him down cold. Sometimes I hate having visitors come to see me because I know they are soft-bellied and he will bum them and they will fork over. Goddammit! _I_ want all their attention and pity!

Yes, I _know_ One Eye is more tasteless than I can ever hope to be because he _never_ pays these debts back. It was a lot of fun watching all the nicotine addicts gather on the front steps to bum each other and dig butts out of the ash cans. When we had more smokers here, you could tell who had been out digging in the dirt because a re-lit butt has a stench to it that closely matches that of a regulation cheap cigar. Ewwwww.

In other news, I have reason to suspect that a certain maintenance man stood up an RN in the broom closet and performed the oldest gynecological exam in the world. But I need to put my ear back to the ground and get more salacious details.

Jimmy is being bad again. He is the old fart who will run you down with this walker if you get in his way. He has to have a portable oxygen pack with him whenever he isn't connected to the house hose. And he will sneak out the emergency exit between our rooms in order to SMOKE! The puke is using oxygen and has leather bags for lungs after 40-plus years of Pall Mall therapy, and he won't give it up!

Last night he didn't block the exit door well enough to keep it from snapping shut. So he came over to my window and clawed at it, wheezing "Help" in that inimitable way only tards can do. The bastard woke me up for which I ignored his ass. We had snow on the hills last night, so I know he got a case of really cold tits for a few drags off of a nasty weed.

But the worst thing is that he runs the sound on his fucking teevee so loud that I finally made good on my threat to face his nasty ass about it one-on-one. I told him if he runs that thing loud enough for me to hear in future, I am going to cut the cord off it -- not at the plug but right up next to the set so it will be an expensive service call to have it replaced. I think he got the message this time. If not, my dykes (apologies to Bobbi) are right here...

And that's it for today from God's Waiting Room, the Eternal Rest Room.

Play your own damn Hammond Organ music, Maud.

Welcome back to The Eternal Rest Room. Even though this is a sort of layout for a soap opera, make your own damned Hammond Organ music!

Did I tell you that the state busybodies came through the place? Well, they did. You never saw so many broken pencils and crushed walnuts in your life. There was a veritable litter of them all over the corridor tiles. Everybody was keeping a tight sphincter while they were being watched.

Remember The Buzzard/Sonofabitch? I got so tired of him cussing CNAs (Certified Nursing Assistants/Cleaners of Nasty Asses) that I went to the head nurse (the one in charge of giving the owner some head) and said, "The Buzzard is getting so evil lately that I think you ought to move him from my room to some other room so someone else might enjoy him." No sooner had I gone on my way that it was done.

The first place they put him was right across the hall so I could still hear him roar, only not so loudly. That room has a fair amount of light. Since he hates the light, this was not a good place for his ass to be. Then they put him in the next room over which is quite sunny. I wish I'd had a tape recorder to save all the bitching he did the day he was in there. They finally moved him to a room on the end of the wing which gets almost no daylight. He loves it. He's only punched two CNAs and the resident sawbones in the past week. But he's been sharing quarters with Jimmy/ The Asshole/Shitass.

Jimmy is a mess. He divorced his wife not too long ago and managed to keep most of his reputedly large bank account. He smoked hard enough and long enough to get a great case of emphysema which requires him to wear an oxygen mask constantly if he wants to stay alive. (Unfortunately, he does...) One of the RNs here dotes on him shamelessly. You'd think Jimmy had the biggest dick in town but he doesn't. I know who does... (No, it isn't I.) See, what it is is, he buys her things. This is unethical and probably forbidden by the trail boss of this outfit, one Dragon Lady. But since when was the forbidden forsaken? Jimmy scoots down the corridors with a walker.

Get out of his way. He doesn't care if he runs into you. The head nurse and the social worker both went to him and bitched him out about blasting his teevee. It still hasn't done any good. Jimmy the Asshole is going to do exactly as he pleases. Well, he will until I get the opportunity to carry out my threat of removing the cord from the Glub-damned television. Today they moved Jimmy the Shitass to another room. It seems he's threatened to go punch old Sonofabitch because old Sonofabitch/Buzzard hollers "HELP" all the time and otherwise blesses those within range by yelling "PUT OUT THE LIGHT YOU SONOFABITCHES" and "WATER ... WATER ... WATER ..." Jimmy is also closer to the emergency door now so that he can sneak out for a butt. He must have a death wish, smoking while using oxygen. What Darwinbait.

May I introdouche Sharpa, one of our more recent acquisitions. She's leaving tomorrow for a board and care home which is more in line with what she needs since she is neither cerebrally-challenged nor crippled up. Sharpa has been sharing the room Corny has owned" for five years. We didn't know Corny could be such a bitch but she is. She thinks she is queen bee inside that door. Sharpa cannot run her teevee when Corny wants to run hers. Corny will turn hers up louder and louder and try to drown out Sharpa's until the cacophony is so unreal it comes through the wall and I go over there and raise Hell. This place really isn't much different from a ghetto, only here the residents are old and stupid; not young and dangerous.

I had a good laugh at Jimmy the Asshole's expense the other night. He snuck out for a ciggie about two a.m. and got locked out because he didn't block the exit door well enough. Then he came to my window and scratched at it yelling "Help!" Thank you so much, Mr Asshole, for waking me up. It was a delicious pleasure ignoring your ass and hoping you catch pneumonia (no such luck). Jimmy must keep his thumb on the call bell button because it seems like his light is on all the time.

The CNAs simply can't do enough for him. They are tired of his constant bids for attention. They've begun to ignore him for up to a half hour at a time. This morning he got a proper reward. On the third ring in the space of an hour, he needed assistance getting to the throne room. This became apparent when he began shouting, "I GOT TO TAKE A SHIT!" Even this declaration didn't do any good. Finally be shouted, "GODAMMIT! -- I JUST SHIT MY PANTS!" It couldn't have happened to a more deserving wretch.

My new roomie doesn't deserve all the problems he has. He's a sweet little grampa who has been diabetic for about ten years. Unfortunately, he didn't take care of his disease and it has therefore gotten the better of him. Far from being a tasteless person, he has tasteless things wrong with him. He has ulcers on his feet and legs which will likely never heal. Since suffering a stroke his limbs are all contorted. He appears to be a large spider someone smacked with a newspaper and caused to bunch up into a little defensive ball.

His doctor must be a real dumbell because he is not being given enough insulin to control his blood glucose level. The speech therapist came to see him and determined that it is not safe for him to swallow. He is now decorated with a nasal-gastric tube through which he takes all sustenance. When he is thirsty they have to put some water in his feeding bag. They can moisten his mouth with a lemon swab, but that's all he'll get by that route. He also has a urinary catheter. Gee, one tube in and one tube out, but this is not unusual around here. If you are not pretty much the full quid, they will stick hoses in you. This makes maintaining you so much easier and cleaner.

His dumbell doctor came in to see Grampa the other day. Now they are saying he has a bone infection. Taken together with the ulcers and the poor circulation in his legs, now they want to amputate his right leg. Not only will he then resemble moi, his rather useless existence will have a better chance to continue. This will be handy because I really want to be awakened three or four times a night when he calls out for his wife. Grampa is sometimes in the real world and sometimes in his fantasies. Dr Dumbell took a blood sample from Grampa's heel. Dr Dee did it with a needle and syringe, not a finger lancet. It was probably one of those outragously painful blood gas tests.

I'm still smelling around to find out who it was that balled this really horny RN in the oxygen closet, the little room where they keep the three-foot high portable bottles. Had they gotten carried away and knocked some of these over, it would not have been only *their* chimes that got rung...

And that's today's report from The Eternal Rest Room. If you don't like *my* gossip, go make up some of your own.

Eternal Rest Room Part 10

2010-02-18T12:35:00.000-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

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Here we are back again in The Eternal Rest Room aka God's Waiting Room for Chapter X. The State of California has just been here poking its do-gooder nose in where the bosses think it doesn't belong. They interviewed me and I told them the truth -- the food is unattractive and the cooking expertise wouldn't qualify at Dennys -- my room is too small to maneuver a wheelchair in well -- it's too noisy around here at night with all the hamper lid banging and the hollering from one end of the hall to the other (and that's just the help; nevermind the squirrels who live here!)

Remember The Buzzard, my roomie? I finally got tired of him calling everybody Sonofabitch and Stupid. It's impossible for a female nurse to be a SON of a bitch although Stupid many of them are. His grammar is atrocious as well because his idea of plural for this word is Sonofabitches. Remember what Miss Belchwell in grade school taught you: It's 'attorneys general' and it's 'sons of bitches'! I told the head of nursing that I wanted the old fart moved someplace else because somebody else ought to have a turn at enjoying him. It worked, and you'll see why in a moment.

After I had been interviewed by the State lady, the head cheese around here came upon me suddenly with a very perturbed look about her. She was chewing gum, even. Now, chewing gum among health nuts is much like suddenly taking up chain smoking. It isn't _done_! She lit into me saying that it is this organization what fixes my meals and takes care of me; that the State is not my friend; "We" are your friends. Gee. I got caught biting the hand that feeds me. Oops. And I thought it was my insurance policy doing that. Then she tells me that my insurance quit paying last month and that she had my bill on her desk but that she discarded it instead of giving it to me. (We are all waiting for The Dole to get approved.)

How amazing it is for her to come at me like that and not expect to see repercussions. As soon as she finished her venting I went right over to the State ladies and told them I had just been leaned on. The State lady said, "Oh...? We'll write them up for that, too!" This has been an amusing week to spend in a rest home, if you have to, because everybody is going around here with a tight asshole. I mean, there are more crushed walnuts and broken pencils littering the floor this time of year than you'd see all the other 51 weeks put together.

They even talked to The Buzzard. His trenchant observations went something like this: "This place is no good. Women are stupid. The ladies shouldn't work in this place. [He's talking to a woman] This place is a sonofabitch. You're all a bunch of cocksuckers. I want to take you outside and beat the shit out of you." All this comes out of the same toothless maw as "FEED ME" when the three daily slops arrive. I swear he yells "WATER!" fifty times a day just so he can reload and piss up the bed to the point where they have to strip it daily.

The day after I blabbed to the State and got chewed out for it, everybody who thinks they are a boss around here started being awfully nice to me. It's gotten so sickening that I don't even have to read alt.tasteless to make me want to puke. Could it be that word got around that I am damned sick and tired of these folks inviting all their professional friends in to "review" my case and charge me about double what my insurance will cover? I went to see a peepee doctor last month and we both agreed I didn't have a problem like the resident quack thinks. Charge for looking at my dick for five seconds? -- $165! And now I have a bill from some other idiot for over $400. He has never even said Hello let alone looked at my dick or any other part of me. They have a shrink who comes here to write presciptions for sedation on the ones who are too loud or crabby (maybe I'm next...) He's been in the habit of stopping to talk to me for a few minutes each week.

Imagine my surprise when I get a bill for $60 a week for each of our little bullshit sessions. I was never told of a diagnosis or that his meter was running. When this place smells an insurance policy, it's a little like a pride of lions onto a kill. And they invite all their friends to come share the carcass!

Thank you for letting me spew. I'll try to do better next week. We're down a few warm bodies because some have left either in a box or for other places. As long as I've been here, I haven't managed to be on hand when anybody croaked. I can't wait to see my first death! With any luck at all it will be Tina's husband, the one who gets all the enemas. He really looks grey and he has the most charming black algae or something growing in his mouth he keeps constantly at half mast in that old-people vacant way. Tina sprinkles his gap with antibiotic powder. It's the same stuff they used on me when I got a crotch rash at the big city hospital from their inefficiently-washed sheets.

The only really remarkable patient we have here now besides The Buzzard is some woman who ate a sandwich which had lain out on her kitchen counter for four days. She got botulism. It must be pretty bad because I have not been able to ingratiate myself with her cute son to get a look at her. After all, it was moi who went into the internet (and to Chris) to find out about botulism so they would know more about what her chances are. I hear tell she's got a tracheostomy (hole in the neck) and is on a ventilator.

That's it from The Eternal Rest Room. Disappointing, wasn't it?

Flame me.

Eternal Rest Room Part 9

2010-02-17T13:02:00.000-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

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Good awftuhnooooon from The Eternal Rest Room. This is installment number nine in our continuing saga . Here we are at the main nursing station, and we hear not so softly the sustained cry, "AaaaaaaAAAAAAAaaaaaaaAAAAAAAaaaaaaaAAAAAAAaaaaaaa..." Come into the room closest to the nursing station, the one with the chickenwire windows so that its denizens can be inspected at any time. Here we have the newest senility case I'll call Jenny.

(She must be as old as Jenny Lind would be.) Jenny lies on her bed or in her geri[atric] chair with knees drawn up as if about to give birth. But the constant cry offered up from her gaping and toothless maw is more like that of a sustained orgasm. Together with the noise we get the treat of seeing her toss about as if in the throes of some long-expired passion. It's either that or she is a retired holy roller.

Remember Dirty Old Man who liked to chase after Miss America? He's gone on to some other tard farm now, but he threatened to get on top of Miss America and make a baby. Alice, who protected Miss America from this old bugger would have beaned him with a reacher stick. I threatened to come up behind him and bless him with a can of corned beef from my Mormon closet.

Miss America was also carted off to some other place. Alice misses her because she was starting to have some consciousness. Miss America was a biochemist who either got infected with some-thing she was working on or else tried to design a new drug and got a real whammy off it. But the official story is that she contracted viral encephalitis, not unlike a meningitis. It fried her brain and she will probably be largely clueless until her heart and lungs quit.

The other day before Dirty Old Man left, a nurse told me he was in his room with his dingus hanging out again. (He enjoys trying to impress everybody with his shortcomings...) So I went to have a look at this wondrous sight. I nearly went blind. You take your eyesight in your hands when you presume to look upon 80-year old choad. But I am glad to report that I was correct when I prophesied that his nose is bigger...

The Buzzard, my roomie, is about as cantankerous as they come. But there is another old monster on the property about whom I had forgotten. Meet Jimmy, whose picture you can find in the dictionary when you look up the word 'asshole'. He had a perfectly fine roomie himself once upon a time about whom he complained without ceasing. Seems the guy committed the unpardonable sin of wanting to look at a little teevee now and then. Jimmy just couldn't stand to see anyone else have any fun, I guess. So they took Jimmy to the lower hospital and gave him a small but private room because he cannot get along with anybody.

For some reason known only to the management who play games putting the most incomprehensible combinations of people together in rooms here, they put Jimmy in a room close to mine. In the time since I saw him last, he has acquired a teevee set himself. He runs it all night long and quite a high volume. I have asked the nurses to keep the door to The Buzzard and my room closed after nine o'clock so I can get some sleep and so that The Buzzard won't fidget all night.

The staff social worker said the problem would be handled. Apparently (this time) I am not the only one complaining about the noise. But last night was no different. In fact, Jimmy the Asshole had the set running so high I could hear it through the fucking wall! Social worker had better get on the stick with this or I will handle it myself by (a) calling the state licensing board to complain about the noise, and/or (b) taking my handydandy Swiss Army knife to the cord on the set. And I won't just cut off the plug; I will cut off the whole goddam fucking cord! I _will_ have my way with this miserable bastard because he has flamed me and other people of good intentions in most heinous ways, gratuitously. Fuck him with Chris Murphy's dick (Chris seems to like to stick it in about anything anyway (j/k!)).

I think I'm in love with my physical therapist. He's a cute little twenty-something Filipino boychik. He's a little more demonstrative around me than is strictly "professional". Downstairs in the Torture Chamber they have a heating vibrator thang to be used for soothing sore muscles. While I do my exercises, Boychik often plays with the vibrator and offers to use it on me ... be still, my evil heart! Just think! -- tomorrow is Valentine's Day. I think I'll give him my hard and show him my flower!

And that's it for today from The Eternal Rest Room, aka God's Waiting Room. This has been Book XXXII, Chapter IX , with your announcer Don Pardo and Rosa Rio at the organ...

Eternal Rest Room Part 8

2010-02-16T14:09:00.000-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

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Good evening (or morning, as the case may be). Here we are back at the Eternal Rest Room, aka God's Waiting Room. Perhaps some notes on the physical plant would be in order. This is an approximately 80-bed facility split into two parts. The "lower" hospital is mainly full of tards on general maintenance. They would like to call it a hospice but it ain't. The lower part just has more raving betsy-wetsies. We even have a decent hellavator (lift) to get us from one section to the other. A tard manages to strand himself between floors about once a month.

The food is keeping up with the menu. They promised fish for dinner this evening. It was so bad that no tard I could see would touch it -- it was filet of fish asshole, to be sure. This morning we had the warning this was not going to be a day of haute cuisine. They gave us pancakes which were some old rubber sheet battered and deep-fried.

The Buzzard continues to be himself. They increased the strength of his happy juice cocktail so he doesn't pick out and throw Hershey bonbons from his diaper any longer. But the nurses are still all Sonofabitch and he will meet them outside and beat the shit out of them. Yeah, on his one leg.

Le Chinois was transferred to the lower hospital today so that a complete other set of guests could enjoy him. This is the one who makes Hershey bonbons of a joltingly fragrant variety. We have named him secondarily Mr Hoo Flung Dung. The Buzzard has also acquired another name. Sometimes we just refer to him as Luigi.

And when we're pissed at him we call him Goddam Friggin' Ole Spaghetti Winder. Another endearing apellation is Orville Douchebag.

The Buzzard gets out of breath amazingly easily. He smoked so many cigarettes for so many of his 91 years that he gets out of breath trying to say Cocksucker. Then he begins to hyperventilate through his mouth, almost whistling. So we also refer to him as The Blowfish. If he weren't so fucking skinny, he could swell up when he gets mad and be regarded our very own puff adder, but this is beyond his capabilities at this late stage of decomposition.

Did you meet Abraham ... Abraham Lincoln? They put him up in a "jerry" chair and leave him to his own devices in the lunchroom all day along with several other mainly uncommunicative tards and senile types.

Abraham can disrobe in about one minute. First come the shoes and socks, then the shirt, then the pants, and finally the diaper. Then he will scoot the jerry chair along backwards and show off his Mighty Wurlitzer to all who happen upon him in the hall.

Miss Kooky reminds me that his organ has only one pipe and that the only song he can play is Johnny One Note.

Thank you and good evening from the Eternal Rest Home.

Good evening, or whatever. Let us consider today the rehab department in this joint. That is, after all, the reason I am hanging out here. There is a none-too-large room in the semi-basement we refer to as the Torture Chamber. It's liberally stocked with walkers and crutches which are hardly ever used, and a few wheelchairs not in immediate use. There is a platform with parallel bars for helping people learn to walk after a trauma, a standing box for supporting the body in a standing position, some weight training equipment, and a platform which resembles a futon bed.

Tasteless refresher statement: I'm here because I lost a leg to infection with a particularly nasty staph called Necrotizing Fasciitis. So far I have learned to remove the arm and side panel of my wheelchair, cram a polished maple board under my ass, and slide onto the platform bed. After I do this, I get to reverse the process. You have to remember to put the pieces within arm's reach and do the steps strictly in order going and coming or you get fucked up in short order. To get so fucked when you are all alone could leave you calling 911.

The other thing I tried to learn to do was slide onto a potty chair. Let me introdouche you to the swivel-hipped wonder we have for a so-called occupational therapist. We call him Stephanie because he has better butt action than any female in the place.

I never did get the hang of getting on and off the potty chair with a sliding board. Either the board slipped, got in the way, or tended to cause the potty chair to tip over. In any case, had I proceeded with this nonsense I would likely have broken a hip or two by now. I don't like Stephanie very well. He let me tip my wheelchair over backwards one day. I blame him because I made what turned out to be an unsafe maneuver and he wasn't watching me and didn't warn me. I could have gotten a concussion. I certainly saw stars.

I have learned to stand on one leg, but I haven't been at it enough to learn to pivot or otherwise move on one hoof. Last week my first, barebones, peg leg arrived. I tried it out between the parallel bars and found it is an inch and a half longer than my real leg. When the oddball from the peg leg works comes again, he will have to shorten it for me. Then I can begin to learn to walk some.

You ought to see the reaches these physical and occupational therapists go to to "help" the senile, the newly stroked, and the fools who had a bad drug trip or who got drunk and fell down a flight of stairs. They probably have somebody go around three times a day to wipe up the drool.

I thought there would be more to say about Stephanie. Well, he goes apeshit over anything having to do with Disney characters. He has an Asian roommate and claims they don't have sex. And he's been to every Hard Rock Cafe in the world. I think this nominates him for consideration in some ex officio category of tastelessness and me, by reflection, for having talked about it.

The senior physical therapy assistant likes to tell me about his woman troubles. He likes to eat his girlfriend, even when he has her monthly friend. Every time I pass him in the corridor, I make slurping sounds and he cracks up. A little news on my roomie, The Buzzard. They are giving him whammyjuice(tm) aka Haldol regularly now. He was so sweet today that he didn't call the nurse Sonofabitch even once all morning.

Instead, he even called her Honey once. When I heard that, I was astounded enough to want to stick my finger down my throat. They must have missed a dose with him yesterday though. He got really nervous in the night and shredded his diaper about three a.m. Then he threw the Hershey product all over the floor. Did you know that nursing assistants who hail from India do not deal well with shit...? Well, you do now. They tend to leave such offerings for the Filipinas to pick over.

And that's it today from the Eternal Rest Room aka God's Waiting Room.

Eternal Rest Room Part 7

2010-02-14T14:05:00.001-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

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This is the sixth or seventh installment of the goings-on at The Eternal Rest Room, somewhere in the Bay Area of Northern Californica.

Today I would like to introdouche you to Le Chinois. Le Chinois is eighty-something and spends all damn day rolling around the place in a wheelchair. He wheels into rooms in which he has no business. He appears to be looking to find his own room. But they've moved him from room to room so many times that he must be even more confused than he usually is. You see, nobody can stand him because he plays with his poopoo.

If he stuck to shitting his diaper like a lot of these old farts, that would be just fine. But Le Chinois gets overcome with the need to remove the filled diaper and throw it on the floor or in a wastebasket. Even this oneryness might ocassionally be tolerated except that this man has the world's stinkiest shit. Listen, they had to repaint my room after I got him kicked out of here because the smell peeled the paint.

Actually, the last straw was the time when he not only got rid of the diaper, he wiped his hands and ass on the curtain separating our beds. From the wide expanse of brown smears, he must've done the most thorough job of cleaning up he has ever done. The curtain had to hang there, stinking away, until the next morning when the cleaning staff were back on to take it down and wash it.

The old fool doesn't know what a urinal is, either, so the room he's in usually has that wonderful ,,eau de pipi''. When a nurse scolds him for his bad habits, he roars something about goddam sonofabitch and how he's going to go sleep in Chinatown tonight, to hell with this place!

Did I forget to tell you how rich he is? Oops. Well he goes to Reno or Las Vegas every weekend to play blackjack and he wins five thousand dollars every time! He's fucking rich, to hear him tell it. Truth to tell, the farthest from this place he's been since he was dumped here by his family is the mall four blocks away, and that only happens once a month when they get his VA check, most likely.

Eternal Rest Room Part 6

2010-02-13T16:26:00.000-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

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Next we have Evelyn. Evelyn is nervous. She doesn't know why she is nervous; she just is. When nothing is going on but the rent, she bleats like an asthmatic sheep, "Help help help help help" or "Dear God dear God dear God dear God dear God". She always makes each pious ejaculation (tm the Catholic Church before Vatican II) five times, whichever one she chooses to make at this time. She doesn't know what kind of help she wants. Either that or she needs to "Make peepee". She's had a catheter for over a year and hasn't a clue. Evelyn is a sweetheart, although I have lost my temper when she starts her pious ejaculating at two a.m. and have yelled across the hall, "SHUT UP, EVELYN!"

Evelyn likes to go to the lunchroom for lunch when she feels well. There she can usually con someone into feeding her -- not that she eats much. She, too, senses the proximity of Mr Darwin and welcomes his presence. But they won't let her embrace him! So when she has had a few bites, she pushes the spoon away and makes the most pitiful face you could ever imagine seeing. I told one of the Mexican- American CNAs it's a good thing Evelyn is Anglo. If she did Spanish and wanted "help" she would have to croak, "Ayu'dame ayu'dame ayu'dame ayu'dame ayu'dame." Said CNA nearly croaked from laughing so hard. Spanish is handy around here because you can talk about people who are so eminently commentable without their getting wise.

Let me pause to figure out who else to tell you about...

Also R.I.P. Margaret. Margaret was a seamstress for a local costumer. Every time she took a meal, she had to lay out her tardbib (tm) on the table and smooth it profusely and then fold it up into a little square. You see, we get bibs here because folks like The Buzzard tend to get more on them than in them. One day, someone happened foolishly to mention a famous boulevard by name. Margaret turned on like a Las Vegas sign, "EEEEEEEast Fourteenth Street. Goes WAAAAAAAY out to San Leandro and WAAAAAAAY out to Lake Merritt." She kept repeating this for over an hour, gradually clearing the lunchroom of all but the most self-absorbed souls.

Many evenings Margaret would sit in the sort-of lobbythang by the nurse's station and smooth and resmooth her bib or her afgan and play sewing shop. She would talk to no one in particular like she was running a real sweatshop. "You over there! Get busy! Yes, YOU! "We need people here who work. If you aren't going to work, then clear out!" At other times (especially in the wee hours), she would become disoriented and begin chanting, "Help me, honey! Help me, honey!" They finally had to smooth her out chemically. Last week, Mr Darwin came to pay her a visit through his agency of pneumonia, the old people's friend.

We had a second Evelyn here for a while. Evelyn #2 was a highly indignant one, lemmetellya. She had to be kept in a "jerry" chair because she would get up and try to leave the place. A "jerry" (short for "geriatric") is quite a piece of work. Some have four small wheels such as are found on the front of standard wheelchairs' others have two casters at the front and two large wheels behind just as has a wheelchair. Many jerrys have a table front which can be locked into place to prevent the user from leaving the chair behind. Evelyn #2 would sit there out in the lobbythang and quiz each passing person, "Miss ... Miss ..." (didn't matter if you were a boy) "Miss ... can you help me here? [What do you want?] "Can you help me get this loose?"

Evelyn #2 wanted the table part removed so she could get up. Pretty soon everybody just began ignoring her. This made her madder than a hatter. She would slam her palms down on the table part and yell. "Why won't you help me here . Can't you see what's going on here? Why won't you answer a simple question? ONLY STUPID PEOPLE WON'T ANSWER QUESTIONS!" Need I tell you that they had Profesora Feelgood come and spike her orange juice without further delay...? They finally took her away to the cuckoo ward at the county.

Come over here and meet Fussbudget. Fussbudget got his head rolling-pinned in a car accident. See where they took pie-shaped pieces out of his skull right above his forehead and back here? That's why he hasn't any hair there. Fussbudget talks to himself and/or nobody all the time. Mr friend Mr Cheez took one look at Fussbudget and said, "Well, this one's sure got oil on his clutchplate." When Fuss gets upset with the imaginary person with whom he is conversing, he begins whacking himself on the head with his fists. One day his did this with particularly wild abandon and Profesora Feelgood came and stuck him with a very large needle. Ever after that he's been very quiet. He gets the special orange juice, too!

Never accept citrus from someone you don't know...

[ Speaking of urinary catheters and such, ] The Buzzard, of such recent memory, declared the other day that somebody should "pull this thing out cuz it hurts my privates". Hell, I ain't heard choads and such called "privates" for years! Dunno if he will give his waterworks a yank, but will let you know if he does.

We have Clarence to keep us entertained as only a true pissqueen could be kpet entertained. Clarence, when he needs to pee, just hauls his considerable choad over the side of the bed and pees on the floor. When he has to take a dump, he crawls out of bed and stands partway toward the bathroom wondering what to do next. By the time he figures out where he is on his way to, he has dumped a large groganpile on the floor. He then goes into the bathroom, sits on the throne, and wonders why the hell nothing else is going on but the rent.

His roomie is a once-proud Scot who, it is said, had the most marvelous red hair and beard. It's all snow-white now, and so he's called affectionately "Santa Claus". He has one tube in and one tube out. I don't think he pulls the catheter, but he is constantly pulling out his nasal-gastric tube. It's clear that he knows Mr Darwin is calling and he wants to answer the door, but these folks won't let him. They just keep sticking a new hose in his snout whenever he does this.

For those who are unaware of such things, allow me to tastelessly acquaint them with further catheter lore. There is nothing quite like having a rubber hose shoved into your choad, especially if you are sore in there. But for the really squeamish and for those easily infected in the urinary system, we stock what are called Texas catheters. These roll on like a condom and attach to the standard pissbag with the regulation hose. If you have a big choad, they work pretty well. If you have a teeny-tiny worm, you're shit out of luck because the thing won't stay on and they will have to stick a hose in you. They tried to make Clarence wear a condom catheter, but he kept taking it off. I guess the thought he'd already cummed :)

Eternal Rest Room Part 5

2010-02-13T11:38:00.001-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

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Permit me to take you for a tour of the Eternal Rest Room's guestrooms. First let's meet Stan the Man. Oh. You've already met him. Yes, he's the one who usually has his choad on display when he expects a nurse to show up. And we've all kidded him about his shortcomings, and we've told him that if That Thing of his were a little bit bigger it would qualify as a penis.

Next to him is old Mr Black who is ... All Mr Black can say in his post-cerebral event (stroke) fog is "Nurse .. nurse .. nurse nurse .. nurse ..." From him it sounds more like "Nurf nurf nurf nurf nurf." He's one of our famous scratcher/biters.

Nurses have to watch their shit when they bathe or otherwise fuck with him because he will hit or bite hard enough to bruise or draw blood. Consequently, they leave Mr B pretty much alone. They haul him onto a waterproof gurney and haul his black ass to the shower only when he is about as ripe as a runny brie.

R.I.P. Hazel. Hazel finally croaked. Before she went, she would have made an alt.tasteless darling. When she first came here, she was in a constant state of outrage and high dudgeon. She asked anyone passing by to call the deputy sherrif. No, she did not want the sherrif or the police; she wanted the deputy sherrif. She wanted whoever brought her here arrested. She got wise to the lousy food here more quickly than most and gradually ate less and less of it. At a certain point the resident sawbones went in to see her and scold her into eating. These pleas did no real good, so she got a nasal gastric tube installed and had a liquid diet whether she wanted it or not. It took six nurses to hold her down while the doctor installed the tube. She bellowed and bucked like a 250-pound mule.

Even with her room door closed, you could hear her all over the place. After they left, she began what was to be a 26-hour rampage of pitiful litany, "Oh, please dear God come and take his hose off my nose!" She ranted so much that they finally had to give her feel-good medicine so everybody else could get some sleep. And then one morning she slipped away. We all wondered what took Mr Darwin so long. What made it take so long is human interference. She quit eating because she knew her time was up. I've seen it before. But this place wants to keep the insurance and/or state money coming in, so they will spare no medical instrumentation to keep you going. Talk about hell on earth.

To be continued...

Eternal Rest Room Part 4

2010-02-12T15:02:00.000-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

Perhaps a word is in order about the tasteless food served in this waiting room. Let's consider breakfast which is plopped into our rooms at about 7:15. Five days out of seven we get scrambled eggs which are obviously made from something out of a box. The toast is often made of some exceptionally awful BROWN bread with the saltiest margarine in the word pre-smeared. The flavor of it is one notch above the bouquet of axle grease.

You will never see a corn flake or a grape nut around here because some tard might break a tooth on it (if he/she/it -- heavy on the sheeeit -- has any left). No, we get hot cereal made with too much water EVERY morning of the year. I know what becomes of old diaphragms; they get battered and fried here and served as waffles or pancakes. You havn't lived til you've tried to put a fork to one of these incredible objects. Once a week we get a substance redolent of stale onion, dark and craggy-looking which tries valiantly to be hash. The problem with it is, it looks about the same going in as it will coming out...

Lunch is delightful. For those of us not confined to bed and/or decorated with a nasal gastric tube through which we take sustenance, there is luncheon in the all-purpose room. Now, the all-purpose room serves as a solarium-without-sun for the more serious tards during the morning hours. Some of them get left in there during the noon hour, the more to enjoy seeing their betters eat real food and smack their fat, sassy lips in glee -- just like _they_ used to before they had their stroke -- excuse me! -- "cerebral event".

Lunch is formulaic in the extreme. There will be one or another boiled meat, some stewed-up greens that might have been fresh last month, and mashed potato made from a box recipe of powder and water. I am convinced that the box of powder used is really wall plaster and not something however remotely vegetable because even our water cannot taste _that_ bad... The dessert is often quite good because they buy ready-made pies and cakes. But if the chief cook tries to bake cookies, you'd better run. She also makes the ... pastries ... the diabetics are allowed to have. I am certain that sexual favors have been exchanged between the lips of diabetics and the bump-uglies of non-diabetics in trade for a decent dessert.

Dinner is the real laugh of the day. There will be more wilted veggies and more boiled meat of some sort. This batch will probably be off of a different farm animal but will be from the same general location on its general anatomy, someplace close to the asshole. It is agreed by all who (a) have some brains left and (b) have tasted it, that the fish on Friday is deep-fried fish assholes. I found out that if you really hate the recurring menu, you can ask for a sandwich. Most times you will get a grilled cheese sandwich with more of that yummy axle grease parading itself as margarine. The cheese is neither here nor there. But now and then you will strike it rich and get a ham sandwich. The ham is really quite tasty. I guess the meat market where they buy this swill hasn't figured out a way to fuck that up yet.

It's really fun to watch some of the tards eat this crap. Take my roomie, for instance. PLEASE take him... If you're still eating normally but have problems, you get the puree'd diet where they grind everyting up to the consistency of LiquiShit (tm). It completely ruins the flavor of anything and makes the plate resemble a full bedpan more than a little bit. But The Buzzard, as we non-endearingly call him, scoops it up with his giant-handled tardspoon (tm) and tosses it into his toothless maw with wild abandon and noisiness which gives some clue (no doubt) to the noises he used to make when he was fucking the brains out of some tavern maid down on the waterfront between hanging out with Harry Bridges and tossing down one too many steam beers.

You shouldn't wonder that I, valuing my sanity and my aesthetics, choose to avoid the dining room _and_ my roommate. I usually take meals with Alice down the hall. She's about the only other person here with a full load of bricks. Alice is kewl. She even laughs at the jokes I get off of here... Hell, she even laughs at _my_ jokes. And will you wonder if I tell you that I have in my room a "Mormon" closet? I keep canned food in stock for those days when the swill is just too putrid to even think about. Today I had tuna and peas instead of boiled chicken vaginas on rice. Alice gave me her commerical cookie and I gave my diabetic cookie to my roomie who eats anything.

As we all know, that which goes in must sooner or later come out.

And if it doesn't emerge pretty much on schedule, it will be helped by the generous application of sufficient buttbombs (tm) until it does. Which brings me to a slam of the nursing profession. We have several women here who do not deal at all well with shit. Now, I'm sorry, but shit is big business in a place like this. These ladies used to be called nursing assistants and are now decorated with letters (as though they were degreed?!) They are Certified Nursing Assistants, "CNAs". Several of them need to understand that CNA really stands for Clean Nasty Asses!

Have a nize day. I have...

Eternal Rest Room Part 3

2010-02-12T06:05:00.000-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it!

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Today's missive from God's Waiting Room, aka the Eternal Rest Room, concerns The Buzzard, my roommate. All he does is eat like a starved pig (much noise and panting), sleep, and shit his industrial-strength diapers.

The naggy occupational therapist wanted The Buzzard to wash himself and get dressed today, which The Buzzard wasn't about to do. All he wants to do is call everybody who disturbs him 'sonofabitch' and 'stupid'.

He complained of having a stomach ache. You have to be very careful who you tell you troubles to around here, and how you phrase the description or you can get more inappropriate attention than you ever thought possible.

Pretty soon the wing RN came back to see The Buzzard. She announced, "Mr Buzzard, your nurse says you are having trouble with your BM. So I am going to give you a Fleet enema to help you out." The Buzzard hasn't got a clue to what is going on, senile old fart. She no sooner has his skinny little pale ass rolled over and the ButtBomb (tm) installed than he starts yelling, 'THAT'S ENOUGH! THAT'S ENOUGH! THAT'S ENOUGH YOU SONOFABITCH! STUPID COCKSUCKER! YOU'RE STUPID. I DON'T LIKE THIS HOSPITAL! NOBODY'S ANY GOOD HERE!" Nursey just keeps squeezing that nasty, cold fluid right up his ancient ass while he bellyaches about the accommodations.

As I write this, he's over there behind the curtains he wants drawn constantly to keep the daylight from touching him. And he's farting and squirting and carrying on. A truly tasteless audio display it is, I must tell you! This is almost as good as the time they forgot to empty his pissbag (he has a catheter for carefree living...) until it ran over onto the floor and stunk up the room. Damn, if it didn't curl the tile.

And that's life for today at the Eternal Rest Room. Come back often.

Bring a camera.

Eternal Rest Room Part 2

2010-02-11T18:30:00.000-08:00

This literary masterpiece starts here if you missed it

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The Buzzard and I are rightside amputees, so when we go shopping for shoes, we cannot buy one pair and share :) (Hey! -- that's catcy!) (TM!) However, since we are rightside amputees and shoe stores tend to put out the left shoe for displays (at least they do here in Coketown), we can help ourselves to the latest in pimpish attire!

I lost mine because I somehow got innoculated with a wild staph called necrotizing fascista. It sits in there silently eating up ligaments and things until you can't use that part of you any longer. I should have saved some of the juice to use on my enemies. The Buzzard lost his because he smoked too many cigarettes. He got repeated blood clots in his leg and it thus became so damaged they had no choice but to lop it off.

Even as an amputee, you can have class or not have class. I do not shorten my pants. I tuck the extra leg into my waistband for a neat look and a built-in muff affair so handy these cold mornings. Buzzard lets his hang, and a rediculous-looking sight it is, I have to tell you.

Let's see ... we covered Ernestine and the way she subjects her husband to the portable water works. But I did neglect to tell you why we all think she is particularly fond of the old geezer. He is reputed to have the largest penis of any white man in this place. We figure she just can't forget what she once received... Either that, or this is (as my father once defined divorce) the screwing he gets for the screwing he got.

But there is more. A notorious other devoted wife to a patient on the other side of the place not only puts her precious hubby through hydraulic therapies, she is not above (or below?) sticking her finger in to see if (a) he needs one, or (b) he needs another one.

By all this hangs yet another tale. The largest choad in the place is owned by a black man who was a minister. Now I know that God is a jokester because anything that grand should have been shared as feloniously as possible. We have another fellow here who would like to be called to such a phallic ministry but everybody is begging him not to take up the cloth, as it were. Whenever a nurse goes to tend Stan the Man, he has his choad out on display. His nose is bigger. One nurse looked at it and giggled. Another said "Stanley, are you that proud of your shortcomings?"

Another stood thoughtful in its presence and then said, "You know, Stanley, if that thing were a little bigger, it would be a penis!" So far no one has been able to discourage him from showing himself off.

And that's life for today from God's Waiting Room.

Eternal Rest Room Part 1

2010-02-11T14:54:00.000-08:00

Since I am having some trouble coming up with original content of my own, let me use someone else's! I am pretty certain this guy won't mind. He died in 1998 (7 May 1944 - 12 Dec 1998). He used to write this stuff on Usenet (remember that?) and although this stuff is fairly tasteless, it's pretty funny. He used to have an archive which at some point has been taken offline. I cannot find his ramblings on the Usenet archives either, so I feel it almost a necessity to put his writings back online where they can live again.

Paul Ess was a amputee and eventually succumbed to complications from the stresses on the body. Furthermore, he had to live much of his adult life in professional care homes although he had much 'less polite' names for them (Tard Farm, Eternal Restroom, etc). Much of his ramblings are observations from his experiences in these homes; other things are ramblings from this past. And yes he was gay.

Paul Frederick Schnellbecher I think was his real name but he went by "Paul Ess" on Usenet. Enjoy or look away. I give you "The Eternal Rest Room"

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Today, my roomie in this convalescent hospital (we're both leg amputees) was yelling in his senility to any nurse who wandered by that he wanted a "physick". This is an old-fashioned word for laxitive. No one here except moi (who specializes in quaint and sometimes dangerous word constructs) knew what the hell he was talking about. And when no one could figure out what he meant, he would regale them with the terms "stupid" "sonofabitch" [male or female] and "cocksucker".

This man has smoked way too many cigarettes in his 91 years. It's almost hysterically funny to hear him wheeze out cusswords like a leaky bellows. He gets positively red in the face and has to breathe to force out each word. I think he has to wheeze twice to say "cocksucker" with any real volume... BTW, anyone who doesn't believe that smoking is dangerous, its damage cumulative, and that its effects can make your golden years a hell on earth needs to come here and listen to the smokers hack and cough. It's especially charming at three fucking a.m.

So the so-called "treatment" nurse came by with one of those charming little buttbombs (tm!!!) called a Fleet enema. The Buzzard, as we call him, was not amused. He doesn't particularly appreciate anyone checking him for anal virginity. I myself find a Fleet to be singularly unappealing, having been raised on The Ole Red Bag and Long Red Hose with Evil Black Hard Rubber Nozzle. There is nothing else quite like the sensation of your butt being invaded by a hard rubber nozzle coated with cold Vaseline.

I told her to be sure to stick a buttbomb (tm) in his ear as well; it might clean out his disposition, the old crank.

After he refused the Fleet, she deftly slipped him a suppository instead. Later on he managed to expel it and throw in on the floor with profuse cussing.

We'll have to turn him over to Ernestine. Ernestine's husband is in an adjoining room dying of bone cancer. She is deathly afraid he will succumb first to terminal constipation. How he could _possibly_ do this on a liquid diet is unclear to all of us. Nonetheless, the old boy gets a warm water enema every evening at seven o'clock. And to be sure he is clean as a whistle, he gets a Fleet at nine o'clock! All the nurses hate her because she is so demanding. No other inmate of this institution has any business needing anything during The Enema Hour. Hubby rarely says anything about these nightly assaults on his rectal mucosa. One time he did yell, "Wrong hole! Wrong hole!" --To which Ernestine retorted, "Why, you old fool, you only _got_ one hole back there...!"

And that's life for today from the Eternal Rest Home aka God's Waiting Room, someplace in the East Bay in Northern Californica.

Betty and Abe Get Tackled

2010-02-08T12:24:00.000-08:00

What a seamless tackle of Betty White. You can't even tell there's a stunt man/woman there. Hilarious. I usually don't flip over Super Bowl commercials (I didn't think the Google one was THAT good), but this one rocks. Shout out to Betty White and Abe Vigoda (and grab me a Snickers).

Lost again

2010-02-05T11:40:00.001-08:00

Well Season 6 of Lost has started. Season 6 is the final season of Lost so I feel compelled to watch the episodes the week they appear rather than what I have been doing. I have been waiting until the season is over and then just catching up on them all at once. Since this is the final season, I feel somewhat compelled to be more 'current'. That way I can read the forums and get something out of them each week.

But that leaves me to watch the episodes on my laptop. The airing time on TV doesn't fit well into my work schedule (that's the reason I used to just rent the whole season at the end of the year). ABC does a pretty fair job of streaming the video, but I notice it does not work very well on my wireless connection. I have to unplug the wireless router and plug the cable directly into my computer to get the video to run smoothly. And it does!

While the opener started to answer some questions, I'm not sure how I feel about the direction of the show now. First it was flashbacks. Then it was flash forwards. Now it seems to be alternate or parallel realities. Whew. Gives me a headache. Still there is nothing on TV like it and I will watch it to the end.

Stay Behind that Prius!

2010-02-04T09:47:00.000-08:00

Think twice before getting in front of a Toyota Prius. They may not be able to stop in time. There is current scuttlebutt about a braking problem with the 2010 model that causes a 'lag in braking'. Yikes! What could be worse than a lag in braking whilst in city traffic? The price of being Green!

Toyota said Thursday that the Prius problem is a "disconnect" in the vehicle's complex anti-lock brake system that causes less than a one-second lag before the brakes start to work. At 60 mph, though, a vehicle will have traveled nearly another 90 feet before the brakes begin to take hold. The company also said it changed the braking system software in January for vehicles built since then. But it has yet to determine how to fix the brakes of vehicles already on the road.

Feds probing Prius brakes

Survivor 19 coming to an End

2009-12-19T11:16:00.000-08:00

I have been hooked on Survivor 19 (Survivor Samoa), I have to admit. For the same reason I can't watch Lost when it runs live (too late at night on a weeknight), I don't watch it at its regular time slot. However, unlike Lost, Survivor Samoa appears on my free "On Demand" choices usually the day after it airs. So I can stay up to date.

And I love that Russell Hantz. First off all, he's a hot piece. But aside from that, he's an asshole. A real asshole and that has made the show oh so interesting. He's a devil with blue eyes. Survivor has waned in popularity over the past few years and become too homogenized (kind of like American Idle - yeah the spelling error stays). But Survivor Samoa has been interesting because of the cast this time around. And it's not just Russell. There were other quirky characters like that Shambo from Renton who just got booted out on Thursday night.

I don't pick Russell Hantz to win though. I can see him going as far as the final 3 to be decided by Jury vote. But at this point I think he's pissed off too many jury members to win Survivor Samoa. So who will win? I need to post this today so I get my 2 cents in since the final airs tomorrow night.

I believe Jaison Robinson stands a good chance. He has sort of flown under the radar so far and that might bode well for the jury. Natalie White is my second choice. A woman has not won a regular Survivor since Survivor 11 (Danni Boatwright) so this may be the time. Or Mick too? Hard choice but I don't think it's in the cards for Russell. PS Mick, pull up your pants!

Lost Season 6 The Last!

2009-12-17T12:53:00.001-08:00

Well it's that time of year again. The time of year where I go out and rent the entire previous season of Lost so I can watch it and get 'caught up'. I used to just miss a few episodes and then use the rentals to catch up. But this year's Season 5 I just didn't watch it at all so I have a lot more catching up to do. Part of the reason as I recall is that the air time of 10:00pm conflicts with the fact I have to be up at 5:00am for work the next morning.

Also I suspect I may be getting burned out on Lost. The plots have gotten so convoluted and twisted (although still interesting enough) that I wonder where they will go next? Apparently not too much farther.

ABC sent out a press release a few weeks ago saying that Season 6 would be the last season for Lost. There's an old show biz saying: The Show Must Go On. But that doesn't apply to television shows. And the smart producers will know when it's time to wind down a show. There's another saying: all good things must come to an end. There's nothing worse than a TV show that goes on long after it has ceased to be interesting. And I expect Season 6 will be used to answer all the unanswered questions on Lost or prehaps create a spin off. Whatever it is, I know that Lost will go down as one of the best shows of the decade - perhaps even deserving a place in TV history.

Scared of Santa?

2009-12-16T12:32:00.000-08:00

Where you scared of Santa when you were a small child? Apparently while some children seem blissfully happy in Santa's lap, others seem rather horrified. Previously unknown to me, the Chicago Tribune actually collects photos of children being terrorized by Santa. Funny I have no recollection of Santa's lap from my youth - good or bad. I certainly don't mind them now!

How Quickly Things Change

2009-10-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

I hate my cell phone! I liked it when I first got it. (See Here). But actually, once the newness wore off, I grew to dislike it for a variety of reasons. First, it's a flat phone and I have discovered that I can't talk very well on a flat phone. Because the flat phone does not curve to the shape of one's head, the mouth piece is too far from the mouth. In a quiet room, this isn't much of a problem. But when I'm outdoors, especially on a noisy street like Greenwood Ave, the person can't hear me. And that's no better with a blue tooth.

Oh it has lots of nice features like the GPS (I hardly ever use) and the web browsing (which I do use occasionally) and the ease of text messaging with a full keyboard (which I only use with a certain bear who sends me naughty text messages).

So flat phone aside, the plan only has 450 minutes per month. When I first got the phone that seemed like enough. But somewhere in the last two years, I've become a busier phone talker and often have to keep an eye on that ceiling. So when this plan comes to an end, I am giving up this cell phone for a good old flip phone. And I may get one of those pre paid plan deals - we'll see. But the LG goes bye bye.

Who Killed the Electric Car II?

2009-10-25T17:13:00.000-07:00

The big news lately around these parts is that Seattle / Portland will be the "epicenter" for the next round of electric cars. These cars include a electric Ford Focus, a Chevy Volt presumably among others.

Puget Sound is poised to become one of the key markets for the initial wave of mass-marketed electric cars, in part because of plans to begin building a network of more than 2,000 charging stations throughout the region.

Full story here

Who still remembers the GM EV1 Electric car of the late 1990s? And who remembers what happened to that EV1? To this day, people still point the finger of corruption at GM for pulling the plug on what looked to be a very popular car of the time. If you want the whole story, there is a movie called "Who Killed the Electric Car" and there is a wiki page for it as well.

So the big question that I can think of are: was the EV1 just ahead of its time and the right time is now? Oh and another question I would have for the Chevy dealers in 2011 when they roll out the Volt would be: Why should I trust GM after what you did to the EV1? I'm sure they'll have some nice pat answer by then, but the question might surface here and there.

I guess the big difference this time around is there is more interest in the market and there are more car makers getting involved - car makers OTHER than GM. That means competition. Good healthy competition.

Another question arises around the charging stations. They are supposed to be free or very cheap but how long with they stay that way? After all electricity is not free either. How long before customers get priced out of that? What happens in a black out? Well lots of questions, but I have a feeling electric cars might actually catch on this time around. Hopefully there will be no one abruptly pulling the plug like GM did with the EV1.

Pondering Washington Mutual

2009-10-15T12:42:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that it's been over a year since the crash and burn of Washington Mutual Bank (WaMu) and its subsequent takeover by Chase. That was September 26, 2008 in case you were wondering. I kind of miss WaMu and have noticed that the Chase branches seem a little colder. The employees are the same other than normal turnover, but something about the atmosphere has changed.

WaMu had that Occasio design in many of their branch which abruptly went away. Occasio "eliminated traditional teller windows and queuing stanchions in favor of an open, circular floor plan with a greeter or concierge position and tellers working from behind podiums". It tended to make the banking a little less formal and I was just starting to get used to it. That was quickly done away with and Chase has gone back to the old 'one row of teller windows' with too few tellers working and too long of a line most of the time.

I still have not used up my WaMu checks and according to Chase I can just keep using them until they're gone at which point I can re-order Chase checks. I very seldom write checks anymore, so it's going to take awhile to go through them. I think I just received a box before WaMu went kaput. So every time I write a check, I will be reminded of WaMu for some time to come.

As for the old WaMu building downtown - it's still mostly empty according to this recent Seattle Times article. It's now called the Russell Investments Center. Good luck getting tenants in this economy Russell!

There is a website devoted to Washington Mutual called "ghostofwamu.com". It's not a very interesting 'ghost'; just a bunch of court documents. Apparently WaMu shareholders are fighting something in court. Good luck to them too!

Reality Game Shows, Nice People and Mean People

2009-09-30T14:27:00.000-07:00

I just finished watched Big Brother 11 and enjoyed watching Jordan "shut up" Lloyd sneak in to win it. But I got to thinking about those so called 'reality game shows'. It seems that they reward some pretty bad behavior or do they? Everyone in BB seemed to be engaged in activities that most people teach their children not to do - backstabbing, telling lies, manipulating others. All this under the disguise of "strategy". Funny Jordan won by engaging in as little of that as possible. In the process, she pissed the fewest jury members off as possible. The runner up, Natalie and the 3rd place Kevin were both major liars, cheaters, and manipulators.

Same thing happened on Survivor 18 Tocantins. The "nice guy" JT Thomas won. 2nd was Stephen Fishy who wasn't that trustworthy although he remained loyal. 3rd, Errin another liar and cheater. Survivor 19 is only two episodes in, and the most interesting character is an Anti-JT named Russell Hantz. Russell is a hot piece to look at, but what a classic psychopath! Do reality game shows deliberately seek out these nasty types and minimize their picks of nice people? And in spite of that, the nice people float to the top? Could be.

Teeth Whitening

2009-09-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

I ran across this article about a penny pinching mom who allegedly whitened her teeth for just a few dollars. Something about her story resonated with me. I was a smoker a very long time ago, but my biggest issue is daily coffee and the occasional glass dark red wine. These factor have made my teefs well... not so white.

So I decided to try the two products mentioned with promo codes she gives. Well it cost less than $3 for both products (one was just 99 cents with the promo code). It remains to be seen whether this work but at that price, what have I got to lose?

About 1 hour after I ordered I got a call from area code 623 calling to "confirm the order" and give me some scripted pitch. It was to rope me into some sort of automate recurring order. The guy on the phone could not speak very well and I had a hard time understanding him but I sure heard that part! I said No, No, and Hell No. No reorder until I've tried the product and even then not without great scrutiny. Anyway, here is the article in case you want to try it. Be ready to swat the sales call (disguised as a confirmation call) you will get afterward though.

Exploiting The Recession: A Mom's Trick to Whiter Teeth

Professional Shoplifter?

2009-09-02T12:54:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had that burning desire to lift (as in 'shoplift') a 24 case of beer? Well here is NOT how to do it. This woman thought she could stuff it under her Mumu (or whatever that thing is she's wearing) and waddle out the door with it. Was not in the cards though - the cops got her. So my advice to shoplifters: If you want to lift a 24 pack of beer get a bigger mumu? Otherwise you will take the "walk of shame" like this woman.

Progressive Insurance Flo is Funny in Real Life

2009-08-19T19:13:00.001-07:00

First let me say that I hate the Progressive Insurance commercials with "Flo" in them. They are definitely "mute worthy". However did you know that Flo is played by a stand up comedienne named Stephanie Courtney? And she's not half bad in real life. Here is one of her routines. I like her better 'non Flo'. Gad what do they do to make her look like Flo?

A Very Unique Talent

2009-08-13T07:19:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure this is CGI rigged, but it's funny just the same. Dude catches a laptop computer with his buttocks. Yeah I know what you're thinking - strong bunz of steel!

Bye Bye Old Matty

2009-08-07T18:56:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago when I was in Costco, I saw they had queen sized memory foam mattresses on sale. Not 'toppers' but actual mattresses. This one cost $499 - a price to low to pass up. Especially since the old mattress (Old Matty) was hurting my back. It seemed that I could only get about 6 hours on that old mattress without having a back ache. It wasn't that old either - only had it about 2 years. It just wasn't a good fit for me. What a pleasant change the new one is! Ahhhh Memory Foam.

But this left me with a problem: what to do with the old mattress? You can't exactly shove a queen sized mattress in a corner and forget it. So it had to go but how? I had a real difficult time sliding into the spare room on my own - there was no way I was going to get it down the stairs and into a truck to take the dumps. Since I also have a couple of other things hanging around taking up space that I can't deal with (most notably a portable air conditioner that no longer works), I decided to browse CraigsList for a junk hauler.

I found Junk Warriors on there and they had a minimum of $90. At that point, the $90 seemed like a good investment (or divestment I should say) and I called them. They picked up the stuff today and were right on time. That was after the mattress had been getting in my way for two weeks. So now I am not only free of that Matty but of some of the other ball & chain things in my life. Getting rid of junk feels good!

A Bus Riding Cat?

2009-07-31T15:13:00.000-07:00

I have never seen a cat that likes to ride in any vehicle, let alone a bus. I wonder if this is fakery? Something about the way 'Casper' darts out of that bus at the end makes me think something in the milk isn't right.

For the Dog Who Has Everything

2009-07-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

Oh Ok, for your horny non-fixed male (breeding) dog, this is a gift that he can use over and over again. It's a sex toy for dogs! What will they think of next? I'm really not sure how I feel about this. I do know that I would not want to clean up after Rover. Although perhaps it has an easy clean 'reservoir'.

Doggie Doll Lover

Wow was it Hot Yesterday

2009-07-30T09:34:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I thought I fell asleep and woke up in Phoenix, AZ. Varying weather stations reported over 100: SeaTac was 103 and KBFI (I think that is Boeing Field) reported 105. The last time it was 100 here (July 1994) I was on vacation and happened to be camping that week with Eric up at Baker Lake. I recall that one of the hottest day of that particular heat wave, we went to the beach at Deception Pass and went splashing in the Sound. Yes there is a beach there and it's relatively safe as long as you don't go very far from shore. If you can get there, it's a great place to cool your heels (as well as the rest of your body because the water is still pretty cold). Here is a picture of it that rather narrow strip of 'beach'.

Yesterday however I was not so fortunate and had to work. Plus Eric has since passed on so I didn't have another bear to splash around with. Instead of splashing around in the frigid waters of Puget Sound, I settled for a comfortable chair at the library. Most of the newer branches of the Seattle Public Library system have Air Conditioning. The ones that didn't closed early yesterday. I live near 3 of the newer branches: Northgate, Greenwood, and Broadview. I chose Northgate simply because out of the 3 it has the most parking.

I expected it to be packed with people trying to escape the blast furnace but I was surprised that even at 6:00pm, it was only slightly busier than usual. I was even able to find a nice comfortable chair and good cheesy mystery to curl up with. I ended up reading until they were ready to close. Perhaps I'll return today to finish that book.

Death By Chocolate

2009-07-08T20:02:00.000-07:00

Well I suppose you may as well go out with something you love. This is what I call Death by Chocolate.

Man Dies After Falling Into Vat of Chocolate in NJ

Denise Richards ruins 7th Inning

2009-05-03T09:44:00.001-07:00

I cannot cast stones about someone's inability to carry a tune for I cannot sing. However, I would not get up in front of thousands to display my lack of ability. Turn your volume down on this one and in your best C3PO voice, you're going to say: "Oh, how horrid!"

eBay Doesn't Allow Money Orders WTF

2009-05-03T09:21:00.001-07:00

I haven't sold anything on eBay in quite some time and over weekend had the need to unload.. umm, I mean sell something on eBay. After the item was up for a while, I got a question from a prospective buyer asking if I would accept a money order. I thought, huh? Isn't that an option already.... here let me go check. What! Not an option any longer. I dug around a bit and found this page on accepted payment forms.

Ebay Accepted Payments Page

It is the usual corporate bureaucratic mumbo jumbo but basically it says they only allow money orders for certain higher value categories like Cars.

WTF is wrong with them? No wonder so many professional sellers are bailing out of eBay. This policy clearly smacks of anti-trust since it pushes people to paying with PayPal (which eBay just happens to own). I told the buyer I would gladly accept his Money Order and to hell with eBay. Haha. What are they gonna do?

Smart Car and Old Micro Car

2009-04-28T11:33:00.000-07:00

I keep seeing more of those "Smart Cars" around. To me they still don't look 'smart' if you happen to get in an accident in them. These cars are part of a new trend in cars called 'micro-cars'. Did you know this car was produced in the early 1960's? It was called the Heinkel Trojan or something like that. I remember there was one in my neighborhood when I was growing up. This guy that was into odd cars kept it and it made the VW Bug look large. Aside from the fact that it has only 1 back wheel, it looks oddly like the Smart car doesn't it?

It's a super Toilet!

2009-03-05T15:10:00.001-08:00

Don't worry no nasties go down this toilet in this video. Just an amazing number of odds and ends, like ummm.. 18 hot dogs, 4 sets of chess pieces, and several pounds of raw carrots. Hopefully no one gets any improper ideas from this, like flushing kitty away. Anyways, I'm not sure I would want to unclog the sewer after this demonstration!

Milk Milk Lemonade...

2009-02-19T14:27:00.001-08:00

You never know what lies behind the curtain!

A Big Line at Dennys!

2009-02-03T16:12:00.000-08:00

I don't recall seeing a line at Dennys before; especially on Tuesday! I thought at first it might be the line for a dishwasher job. Sad statement on the economy when I would think that eh? Then I remembered reading about their SuperBowl offer for a free "Grand Slam" breakfast and that explained it.

Would I eat one for free? Sure. But is it worth waiting in line for? Hmm. No. This is the Shoreline Dennys in case you were wondering; taken around 10:15 am. The offer ran from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m so, you're already too late. And yes, I watched the SuperBowl, I just refused to watch the commercials and no I don't think they're the best part.

Bye Circuit City

2009-01-18T08:35:00.001-08:00

I heard the news yesterday about Circuit City going under and funny, I didn't feel bad for them. My experiences have never been that good at Circuit City and I always had the urge to walk out (and most of the time I did). Fortunately, in my area, the Circuit City's (what few there are) have Best Buy's very nearby. Case in point: last summer. I needed a new computer. I wanted a notebook this time around but I was not comfortable buying one online. I wanted to talk to people. My first stop was Best Buy Northgate where I was ignored even though I sought out many reps. My second stop was Circuit City Lynwood where there didn't even seem to be any reps to seek out. After being ignored in there for a while, I went 1/2 mile away to the Best Buy and found plenty of personal help even though I knew at least as much at the rep and really only needed him to show me my choices.

The lesson there is obviously inconclusive. But this article in PC World more or less shares my point of view about Circuit City. I was not aware or had forgotten that (in 2007) they fired their higher paid sales staff in favor of unskilled, lower paid staff. That karma came back to bite them! The only thing I regret is that it's one less place to shop around when I need a major electronics purchase (which thankfully is not very often).

TruTV aka Dumb TV

2008-12-27T10:27:00.001-08:00

The last 2 weeks I have been largely snowed in and my mobility has been limited. This is the one time I do miss the 4 x 4. This left me indoors with much far too much time on my hands and far too little to do since my Xmas plans were destroyed by our two week stretch of Michigan style weather. That left me in front of my TV scraping for something interesting to watch.

Fortunately I found an affinity for TruTV with its many variations of what can best be called not-your-typical-reality-TV. The Smoking Gun Presents (aka Worlds Dumbest) series is my favorite and turned out to be strangely addicting. Although I question the selection of has-been and never-heard-of commentators. Tonya Harding? Danny Bonaduce? Leif Garrett? Please. The one in that group with actual comic timing and talent is Judy Gold. The rest of them clearly needed a job and sit there and do the best they can I guess. At any rate, if you don't mind the annoying comments, check it out. Rated H for Hilarious.

Why?

2008-12-23T13:22:00.001-08:00

Owned! Main question, why would you lay down in the path of an elephant? Trained elephant or not. These 2 douche bags got exactly what they deserved.

PS: Yes it's true, elephants are afraid of mice. It was tested on Myth Busters.

Snow Day!

2008-12-22T09:53:00.000-08:00

Taken from my balcony.

Calling in Gay

2008-12-11T09:59:00.000-08:00

Did you call in gay yesterday? I didn't. And apparently not that many people outside of SF and other 'gay meccas' did either. I appreciate the idea and the concept behind it, however the reality of such a measure is another matter. Most of us don't have jobs that we can't be fired from and let's face it; there's a whole big line of people waiting to take just about every job. That line is getting bigger too. So while it reflects the civil disobedience of the civil rights era, it really puts a burden on private employers. Or for small employers, it may just create a strike against someone on their attendance record for calling in without a good reason. And most businesses do not view political views a good reason to skip work.

Lost in Lost Questions

2008-12-10T14:07:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I saw Lost Season 4 at BlockBuster so I rented the DVDs containing the last 4 episodes. For reasons I won't go into here, I was not able to catch the last 4 episodes when they aired last spring. So I had sat through them in a mini Lost-A-Thon last night with bag of popcorn in hand.

Just when I think I've sworn off that show, I get interested in it again! Now I have my calendar marked for the season 5 starter next month. I think the reason this show is so successful and has such a cult following is that for every question they answer, 4 more are posed it seems. I have 2 major questions that I "need" to have answered now (spoiler warning ahead).

What happened to the island? So they moved it. Where did it move to? A different place or a different time? Or both? And what happened to the people still on the island when it moved?

What happened to Jin and Michael on the ship? For that matter were there any survivors on the ship?

Ok I guess that was more than 2 questions. But that illustrates my point. Once you start looking at it, you can't stop asking questions! If you're a lostie and want to see what other losties are tooting about, check out the Lost forums either here or here.

They May be Dead but they're Quick

2008-12-02T14:00:00.001-08:00

I just wasted 90 minutes of my life on a movie called "Days of Darkness". It was just another movie in the Zombie Genre. Yes, Zombie has its own genre. And it's always the same plot it seems. Some event (decease, asteroid, government experiment, etc) caused most of humanity to become zombies. And the plot centers around the few survivors holed up in some barricaded place and deals with their attempt to survive. Yawn. And this was an asteroid one. Why do they think asteroids might cause zombism? Anyway, The plots are pretty much the same with different actors and some different twists. I think the first one to follow set this predicable plot might have been the original "Night of the Living Dead". Don't waste your time with this one unless of course you seek out movies in the Zombie Genre. Oh one thing I notice is that in modern zombie movies, the zombies are quick. No longer are they slow things sludging alone, they are quick on their feet. The genre evolves.

Doing it in on Justin TV

2008-11-22T19:38:00.001-08:00

Then other day some kid killed himself on Justin.TV with a bunch of people watching. You might have read about that in the news. Justin.TV is a web streaming video website that is growing in popularity. I've been on it before and it quickly bored me to tears. It's a bunch of people talking to the camera. It differs from YouTube in that YouTube is pre-recorded videos where Justin.TV is live streaming videos. It takes a certain kind of person to sit there and talk to the camera for hours on end broadcasting themselves on the internet.

But I digress. The family of the deceased kid was in an uproar of blame. The father was blaming the website owners of Justin.TV and the people in the Video channel watching him at the time for not preventing it. Unless the news left it out (which it may have) the father didn't take any responsibility for that whole thing. How out of touch was this father such that a suicide was carried out by his son? I can't imagine the parent's grief (and perhaps a bit of embarrassment thrown in) but the website can’t be blamed. It runs on autopilot as most websites do. The owners don't sit there and watch what each and every person does. As for the people on the channel, some did apparently try to talk the person out of it. I think the Blame Game is a little brother to the Victim Game. In both cases, the object of the game is to shift responsibility somewhere else. In this case, it doesn't sound like the father really knew what was going on in his son's life.

They say it's your birthday

2008-10-06T11:36:00.000-07:00

Happy birfday to me. Today is a day I ignore more as I get older. Funny how that works. Let's see who else shares my birfday? Kevin Cronin (REO Speedwagon), Thor Heyerdahl, Carole Lombard, Helen Wills Moody, George Westinghouse, and King Wenceslaus of the Xmas carol. Hmmm. And a whole bunch of folks I never heard of. What do I do on my birfday? Nothing. A lot of folks use to take stock of their lives, evaluate progress on goals and other such things. Me, it's just another day. (If only I can find someone to blow out my candle today).

3 Lines at Costco!

2008-09-11T09:25:00.001-07:00

This week I did my semi regular visit to Costco. I only have a fridge / freezer combo, so I am limited to what I can store from their frozen food vaults. Aside from the paper towels, trash bags and certain other household items I know we'll use in the near future, most of Costco is off limits to me.

One thing that continues to irk me is the 3 lines of Costco. Do you like standing in line? I don't and yeah, it's one my peeves. Costco has no less than 3 lines.

The first is the one you have to stand in to get in the place. This one is the shortest and briefest, because all you do is flash your card at the attendant. And I can understand this one, after all, it is a membership place. Ok, next.

There is the check out line. Obviously we need that too, but they're soooo slloooooowww. And this was a Tuesday I went. I went with Kurt on a Saturday once last summer so I know what weekend lines look like. Costco doesn't have any kind of quick check or "15 items or less" lines. I suppose it's because they don't want to encourage people to get out of the store without fully loading their oversized cart. Unfortunately, for me I usually have 10 or less items and could really benefit from such a line.

Ok, then there's the 3rd line. The line to get out of the place. This one bugs me because well, it's another line. They can't be trying to catch shoplifters. If someone wanted to stuff something under their jacket (if you can find anything in Costco that could get stuffed under a jacket), this door checker wouldn't noticed. I mean they don't pat you down or anything. The only thing I can think of is they are trying to catch things the cashier missed. Let me say I'd be po'd if they actually found something the cashier missed and made me go back in line (a 4th line!).

I think the real reason the 3rd line is there is to make sure no one slips out without checking out. The Costco's I've been are arranged to make that difficult but probably not impossible.

My big issue is frozen goods. By the time I got home, my frozen Costco blueberries were not as hard as they were when I took them out of the freezer case. And I live only a few miles from the place (Aurora Village Costco). Next summer I will bring a cooler with me!

Reminiscing of Cheaper Fuel

2008-09-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

This looks like my first car.

The year was 1973 and it was a VW Beetle, an original. It was toward the end of the classic Beetle era which I believe ended with the 1976 Beetles. They didn't re-appear until the late 1990's version which is really just a specialty car. I know someone who has a 2003 Beetle and I was appalled at how not-so-great her gas mileage is. The 73 bug I had would easily rack in at 50MPH highway if I didn't lead foot it. Hers only gets about 28 highway.

Of course those early Beetles were built in such a way that their design could not meet the mounting stricter emission standards of the late 1970's. Which is why they stopped manufacturing them.

Around 1973 there was also this oil embargo I vaguely remember. It meant rationing at the gas stations. I remember it being based on the last number of the license plate or something. I don't recall it being heavily enforced. But here we are (still) in 2008 with out of control oil prices. Folks, it's not like we haven't know for quite some time how foreign oil dependence is a ticking time bomb. Tick Tick Tick.

A Greener Footprint

2008-09-05T16:58:00.001-07:00

I got rid of my truck! So I went from this:

To this

A 2008 Ford Focus. What a change. I actually made the change a month ago and feel lucky to have been able to sell my truck in this market! I was paying $4.50 per gallon for fuel and that made me take a hard look at selling it. I had been holding on to the truck because it was paid for and I didn’t want another car payment. But it was getting to the point where I was paying the better part of $100 each time I had to fill the tank. The fuel expense ended up practically being the equivalent of a car payment each month! I came to the conclusion that it was just not meant for the city and my current lifestyle. I quickly gave up on the idea of trading it in because the dealers were only going to give me about 3 or 4k for it (about one third of the blue book value).

I listed in on Craigslist several times and was about to give up on that too when someone contacted me from Gig Harbor who was interested in that truck model and color. He offered me 10K which was much closer to the blue book value (around 12k) so I took it. Then I put the money down on a much more sensible vehicle -- From a big high-ass pickup truck to a compact car. I see than I'm not alone here. Americans have quit driving or have seriously cut back. Now I read that the Federal Highway fund is broke because people are spending MUCH less on gas (which part of that fuel tax goes to them). Everyone at once now: Boo Hoo! Now please don't raid Social Security again to make up for it!

Rotten Apples

2008-09-05T14:44:00.000-07:00

Riddle me this: if you had an nice big apple tree in your yard and it gave fruit a plenty this time of year, would you not accept that gift of nature? Not these folks that live near me! Note the collection of apples on the roof of that shed underneath the apple tree. There's enough there for a produce stand. And oh yeah, to feed a few starving children in Africa too. They've been there for a week and they will just go bad and create a stench up there. Sigh. And here is me buying apples at the store!

Wilburton Tunnel Detour

2008-08-17T04:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I found myself in the precarious position of having to go south on 405 knowing full well it was closed just sound of Bellevue at the Wilburton Tunnel. This closure been well publicized so it's not like I was unaware of it. I don't know Bellevue all that well and I had to hope that the detour signs were ample and adequately posted.

I needed to go east on 90 so going back to Seattle to loop around on 90 was not a very good choice. And that's the recommended detour! Like fuel grows on trees? Well this was early enough on Saturday morning so I thought I would try the local detour. Basically I just followed the traffic. The locals know! Although I did keep an eye on the detour signs as well. Turns out their detour signs have us going a longer route there too. I followed the traffic down Richards, made a left on the frontage road and got on the freeway. Not on the detour route! And I did it mainly by following the flow of traffic. Sometimes it pays to follow.

I-405 Wilburton Removal Detour Maps

Bigfoot or Bigfake?

2008-08-16T11:04:00.000-07:00

Bigfoot is back in the news thanks to the known Bigfoot fakers and some cop on medical leave (hmm). Look I would really like to believe there is such a thing as Bigfoot. I mean it would be a tremendous discovery. After all I'm a bear and we would be kinda related right? But let's be real here.

First of all, there is the obvious problem of how a creature this large could evade capture and wildlife photographers for so long. While it's true that new species of animals are continuing to be discovered, most of them are small creatures - insects or birds - that live in a comparatively small niches and have simply eluded close view for a long time. Or they might be off-shoots of other known species. But recent discoveries of land creatures to my knowledge have not included anything this large.

Now back to the story all over the news. The next step here is for them to get DNA testing. It's already had DNA testing and it tested to be a possum or something. OOPS. With DNA testing, don't you need an existing DNA sample to identify something? Don't you need to know the structure of the DNA strands? Since Bigfoot has never been captured (probably because it doesn't exist), there would be no existing DNA record to compare it to. So even if this were a real Bigfoot, how would DNA testing help? I don't get it. Oh ok, maybe I do get it. It's all a promo like Blair Witch?

In the meantime, here is the latest bit of fakery. Ape costume with special effects guts in a box!

Is WAMu in Trouble Too?

2008-07-15T16:45:00.000-07:00

I have been reading about the failed IndyMac Bank over the past few days. WTF kind of name is that? Sounds like a bank for people who have Macs and live in Indianapolis. Nope, it's a bank in Southern Calif. But it's got me thinking about bank failures.

Is Washington Mutual next? WaMu invested heavily in the home mortgage market over the past few years. The very same mortgage market that has now caused such a ripple effect throughout the markets. Every time I go into WaMu, suddenly I am getting upsells from the tellers. Last week, she noticed I had a credit union and asked if I would like to open a savings with them. I said no, I would not. Today the teller somehow knew I had a small business and asked if I wanted to open a business checking account with WaMu. I said I'd consider it but didn't have time to wait to talk to a banker. So give the tellers credit for playing salespeople, but it kind of makes me wonder.

On a side note, the people that stand to lose the most money in IndyMac had amounts over $100K (that's the limit to the FDIC insurance). That's another supporting example for not putting all your eggs in one basket.

Hundreds line up to demand money from failed bank

Saturday Rumblings

2008-07-05T14:46:00.001-07:00

It occurs to me that I haven't posted in awhile. Oh well, if there's one thing I've learned about blogs it's that I can't post every day because I just don't have that much to say to the world all the time.

Post mortem on my sleep study. I do indeed have sleep apnea (no surprise) although it's borderline problematic. It was enough to get me a CPAP though and I am having to become accustomed to wearing the device. It didn't take me long to the get used to the airflow but I am having some discomfort issues that may require a different mask.

Here are two more pics taken from my deck. They're nearly the same angles as the previous ones, only it was a glorious sunny day.

New Place

2008-06-13T16:41:00.001-07:00

Ok I got moved! Can't say I am settled. Still all too many boxes sitting around. Never lived in a place with such a sweeping territorial view as this place (including a chunk of Puget Sound). Pics are taken from my balcony. Pic 1 is looking northwest over Carkeek Park., Pic 2 is looking southwest toward Crown Hill and Ballard and Pic 3 is looking due west. If I spend too much time looking at the view, I won't get anything done so down go the blinds! I'll take pics again when (if) the skies are clear again. The mountains are visible too. WOOT.

Sleep Study Done!

2008-06-13T16:08:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned here, I had to get a sleep study. Well that's done! It was last night. Here are photos of me all wired up before I retired for the evening. Don't I look happy? The box I was holding (if you've had one you know what it is) was some sort of connector to their system. When it was time to go to bed, I had to have the technician plug that thing in and make a few adjustments.

I didn't sleep all that well (or didn't think I did), but 6am came pretty quickly so I must have slept a large chunk. I will have to wait until week after to see the results.

On the Move Again

2008-05-31T07:55:00.000-07:00

It's time for me to move. No, not this blog; not quite that simple. I'm talking about moving me. Currently living in Edmonds (aka DeadMonds) and found a place in Seattle's Greenwood hood. It happened rather suddenly. I started looking for a place and kind of expected the search to take weeks or even months but a place just jumped up and stood in the middle of my path and said "here I am, rent me". I was very clear about what I was looking for and that certainly helped me recognize the right place when it appeared. I was also clear on wanted to avoid.

One of the biggest things I needed to avoid was traffic noise. The place I currently live in sits right on top of Highway 104 as the road descends down to the Edmonds Ferry terminal. It's in a part where there are no traffic lights nearby so the traffic goes speeding by. Whoosh whoosh whoosh... and the position of the unit relative to the highway makes the traffic even more amplified. Furthermore, it's not steady enough traffic to fade into the background and become a white noise.

There are many parts of Greenwood that are like that and I was cautious to the give the ear test. I looked at the place on a Saturday afternoon and if there was traffic noise, it was indeed background. The place came up rather suddenly. One day it was life as usual and the next day it was OK time to move. So I need to get off my ass and get busy packing.

There probably won't be much blogging for the next few weeks in case you care.

First Beer of 2008

2008-05-24T20:21:00.001-07:00

Yes it's true. This bear doesn't drink much beer. I only like it when the weather is very warm and the beer is very cold. That meant getting it from the back of the cooler in the store and then putting it in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Yes! I prefer Mich Lite, but had to settle for Bud Light. 1 down, 5 to go. Last summer it took me all summer to go through a six pack.

Celebrity Chef Says Trade Sex for Cooking

2008-05-24T17:03:00.001-07:00

Jamie Oliver believes that women should abstain from sex with their husbands or boyfriends to punish them if they refuse to cook. "Men are driven by sex," the celebrity chef said this weekend at the annual Hay-on-Wye festival. "So the best way for women to get their men into the kitchen would be to stop having sex with them until they start to cook."

Bwahahahaah. Girlfriend please. Listen Jamie, no one knows better than me that CraigsList is already full of married guys looking for other guys to suck their winkies or plow their manhole. Such action will only increase those CraigsList ads. Sure Jamie, that's a wonderful way to prod those husbands to cheat on their wives. Too funny. LOL.

Jamie Oliver calls for sex ban to get men cooking

Send in the Bears

2008-05-15T14:59:00.000-07:00

Having a little fun with oldie lyrics. Ok I was bored. Found the lyrics to Send in the Clowns and only changed one word. "Clowns" to "Bears". And it still reads and sings pretty good.

Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Send in the bears.

Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can't move.
Where are the bears?
Send in the bears.

Just when I'd stopped opening doors,
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours,
Making my entrance again with my usual flair,
Sure of my lines,
No one is there.

Don't you love farce?
My fault I fear.
I thought that you'd want what I want.
Sorry, my dear.
But where are the bears?
Quick, send in the bears.
Don't bother, they're here.

Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer,
Losing my timing this late
In my career?
And where are the bears?
There ought to be bears.

Well, maybe next year.

Sleep Study

2008-05-14T20:05:00.001-07:00

I have to get a sleep study. After all these years of daytime tiredness, finally I decided to do something about it. Yesterday I saw the "Sleep" Doctor at my medical center and she scheduled me for an overnight study. It's next month.

Now what to wear? The rules for this sleep study say that bedtime clothing must be worn. No exceptions. Let me just say that I can't remember the last time I wore jammies to bed. I do often wear a top or T shirt so I guess that's halfway there. I'll have to go to Target or Fred Meyers to see what they have in the way of Men's jammies - preferably on clearance since this is probably the only time I'll wear them!

Guitar Hero Online

2008-05-09T15:10:00.001-07:00

I sucked. I keep getting boo'd off the stage!

Here are the game instructions.

Pick your song. As the song progresses, colored markers indicating notes will travel down the screen in time with the music; the note colors and positions will match those of the five fret keys (#1-5 on keyboard).

Once the note(s) reaches the bottom, the player must play the indicated note(s) by holding down the correct keyboard keys and hitting the strumming bar (Enter/Return key) in order to score points.

Success or failure will cause the on-screen Rock Meter to change, showing how well the player is playing (denoted by red, yellow, and green sections).

Should the Rock Meter drop below the red section, the song will automatically end, with the player booed off the stage by the audience.

Lover Come Back

2008-05-09T15:00:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a man that was so right that everything was like a natural high? I mean this guy (I'll call him Bob) was the best night of sex I have had in recent years. We fit together like a glove; the two of us. I mean I still think about that night. Baby, if you're reading this and I don't think you are, but I mean it. This guy was the hottest thing in my life for one night. A one night stand. When he finally left at 5 in morning (I think) we were unbelievably spent.

What the hell? I mean why do I think about someone like that nearly two years after the fact. This was circa January of 2006. What happened to Bob? He moved away to Scottsdale due to circumstances of his. Did I forget about him. Yes and no. I still remember you and I still get aroused thinking about you "Bob".

Why exactly do I mention this? He emailed me yesterday and says he wants to fly up and spend a few days with me. He also sent me some very naughty photos of him to help me rekindle the memory.

I should have moved on by now and just said no. But I didn't; I said sure. I guess when there's something that good, there's no way I can say no. Who knows, maybe the fire will have died down and we'll have to spend the weekend some other way. Like actually out of bed. We'll see. Don't expect to hear anymore about this affair, I just had to get this off my chest today. I know, one day after I said I wouldn't use this blog to talk about my love life. Sigh.

I had Sex with Grizzly Adams

2008-05-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

Ok now that I have your attention, I did, really I did. Sort of. This bear date I had over the other day looked a whole lot like Grizzly Adams - an uncanny resemblance. At least until he removed his clothes. Much to my surprise, he was wearing a badly torn pair of panty hose underneath his jeans. So now you have the picture in mind: Grizzly Adams wearing torn panty hose. He wasn't about to remove them either. I was supposed to "do my business" by way of the holes in the hose. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry so I did neither - I just did my thing.

Now that whole thing was unexpected because I sort of expect bear type guys to embrace their masculinity - not their feminine side. But it was what it was. A chance encounter. I won't use this blog to talk about my sex life - umm, very much. But this was too good to keep to myself. Now ask me if I'll invite him back!

Fresh Strawberries Stink

2008-05-07T11:53:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how fresh strawberries stink up your refrigerator? I do. Or if you don't put them in the refrigerator, they stink up the kitchen. But one thing I noticed is the stinkyer the strawberries, the yummier they are! Funny how that works. They're just one of those things that smell bad but taste good. This time of year, I’ll just live with it! Yum. Strawberries for breakfast, lunch and dinner! A bear loves his berries.

Right Between the Eyes

2008-05-04T19:41:00.001-07:00

I can tell when spring allergy season hits. By my eyes. My eyes begin to itch. They itch badly. It seems like that's my main symptom of seasonal allergies and I control it by none other than an inhaler. I have a prescription inhaler for Astelin. You might wonder how an inhaler can help itchy eyes. I dunno. I just know it works and my eyes stop itching in about 5 minutes. Thankfully this only is needed 4 or 5 weeks a year.

The Joy of MP3 CDs

2008-05-04T19:32:00.000-07:00

Ok the simple things in life make me happy. I have this cheap ... um I mean inexpensive boom box type player that I bought a few months ago. I bought it because it has the option to play MP3 files. So I put my entire Brian Culbertson collection on MP3, organized it by album, burned it (on to 1 CD) and starting playing it. Cool, it played it exactly how I had the albums arranged. Started when I got home from work Friday (at 4:00pm) and it was still playing at bedtime. The photo shows it on album 7, track 73 (you have to click on the image to see that). The track 73 refers to overall tracks not 73 on album 7.

Oh you might say, you dumb bear. You have an IPod dock sitting there; just use your Ipod. Oh I do, but I don't like the lack of arrangement flexibility on the Ipod playlist. So there so cool.

Is your Job Disappearing?

2008-05-02T12:13:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of the 30 fastest declining occupations. I didn't find too many surprises in here although the decline of Pharmacy Assistants is rather surprising. Every time I go to Rite Aid I see more and more of them working behind that glass wall.

30 of the fastest declining occupations

Scarlett Johansson Falling Down

2008-05-02T08:24:00.000-07:00

Ok here comes Frank Bear the music critic. Sorry folks when there is something this horrible, a bear just has to share it with the world! Scarlett Johansson (ScarJo) joins the ranks of A List celebrity women who (even though they aren't primarily singers) decide to make a recording. Remember Paris Hilton "Stars are Blind"? That was even better than this!

ScarJo does Tom Waits "Falling Down" here. ScarJo sounds like hmmm.....oh I know! For those that remember vinyl records. When I was a kid we had vinyl 45's. We used to get a kick out of playing the likes of Diana Ross and Carpenters 45s slower on 33 RPM. This is what ScarJo sounds like. If you don't remember vinyl 45s well then think of the worst Karaoke performance you've ever heard and that should come close. It's truly awful -- don't say I didn't warn you! ScarJo, you're a wonderful actress; stick to what you do best. Oh and she really did go "Falling Down" about a year ago according to this TMZ article.

New Poll!

2008-05-01T12:27:00.001-07:00

Ok the 'Favorite Season' poll is done and thank you for voting. Spring totally kicked ass. Summer and Fall were next and barely anyone likes Winter. So on to the next poll!

How will you spend your tax rebate aka ecomonic stiumulus rebate aka gift from Dubya?

I have set 5 choices with the old escape clause "something else". I put gasoline in there because at $4 a gallon it's in class by itself! (Some might consider it a necessity but others might consider frivolus). Vote bears, cubs, etc! I am leaving the poll open until the end of August.

Laptop Versus Desktop

2008-05-01T08:41:00.001-07:00

Ok every few years it's time for a bear to buy a new computer. And every time, I have this Laptop Versus Desktop computer argument with myself. In the past, there was a huge price gap between a desktop (or tower) and a decent laptop (notebook) computer. I usually went with the desktop because of that price gap and the fact that I couldn't justify the difference. It's not like I spend a bunch of time in hotspots or anything. But that price gap has really narrowed this time around. I priced out a laptop and a comparable desktop at Best Buy online with the options and software I wanted on it. It was $1594 for the laptop and $1356 for the desktop. Hmm.

I don't want to buy online however so I will have to go a Best Buy store. I am an IT professional by the way, so in most cases, I know more about the computers than the geek trying to sell me. Not always, but in any case I can hold my own and they can't BS me. What I don't know is if the options I chose online are available in the store so I will have to take those printed out shopping carts with me when I go.

I do know a list of things I don't want: Anything by HP (bad experiences with HP except for printers). Any suggestions or recommendations?

Cloverfield

2008-04-30T14:45:00.001-07:00

I initially poo poo'd this movie due to the all pre-release hype. Pre-release hype automatically makes me suspicious. And this movie was hyped just like Snakes on a Plane so I thought, ok, I'll just wait until it comes out on DVD. Yesterday I rented the DVD and have to say it was well worth the $4 I paid and the two day rental at BlockBuster.

All I can say is WOW. It was an amazingly effective movie. They took a queue from Blair Witch Project and made it in a mockumentary style which in this case was very effective. I mean, if you're going to make yet ANOTHER monster movie about yet ANOTHER monster attacking New York City, you're going to have do it a bit different to make it worthwhile. And different it was! If you're expecting a classic monster horror film, forget it. Think Godzilla ala Blair Witch Project.

We saw the monster, but it wasn't that prevalent. We got glimpses of it every now and then, but only got a good look at it toward the end. Only giving the audience just barely enough horror is way more effective than throwing horror at us every step of the way. The real horror was the human element; the way a horror movie should be. My only complaint was that I found the characters a bit confusing but it didn't dull my enjoyment.

A Whole New World

2008-04-24T08:49:00.001-07:00

It's a different world than the one I grew up in. And this proves it! A gay kiss on a daytime soap opera. Not that I watch soaps, but this is heralding in a new day that has been very, very slow in dawning. You would not have seen this in the "As the World Turns" of my youth (not that I was watching it). Of course the right wing fanatic soap fans will be furious. Sally Kerns, what do you think of this? Muuahaha!