More proof!

The two pills

*** Notice! Explicit Language Ahead! ***

I visited the doctor a few weeks ago. I wasn't feeling bad when I walked in his door. No sir. I was feeling like crap a week earlier but I was fine when they actually got around to seeing me. I explained how I somehow threw out my back doing NOTHING. The pain was so bad I took some pain killers my wife got for dental surgery. This deadened the pain but I suddenly developed a screaming headache and a dull but persistent testicular pain. That's right, it was like a little man had taken up residence in my underwear and decided that he needed to squeeze one of testicles constantly to punnish it for some perceived wrong it had commited.

It was a fun 7 days.

The doctor listened to my symptoms and then, I kid you not, said "Well, you're feeling better now aren't you? SO I guess it wasn't serious."

Really? I spent a week freaked out, sleepless and panicked about taking pain killers that caused a four day headache and wondering why the hell one of my fracking BALLS was turning EVIL. This is your wizened medical opinion? Awesome.

Since there was nothing for him to look at he decided to check my blood pressure and schedule a physical. I got my blood tested and a chest x-ray. Then I got poked and prodded, and yes, that included our favorite the D.R.E. (Moooooooooon Riveeeeeeerr....) Too obscure?

The doctor reviews the various numbers and tells me that many things are just fine. Great. I like things being fine. But one number isn't fine. My blood pressure. He's taken readings like 20 times and seems confident that it's "Slightly high". Hmmm. He goes on to explain that HBP is "The Silent Killer".

I thought that Ninja's were the silent killers. But tests have shown that HBP kills significantly more people than Ninja's (these days). Then he writes a prescription and hands it to me. That was a slap. I have rarely been prescribed anything. And now there are not one but two pills that I am supposed to take every morning. I guess 'Slightly High' was high enough to warrant drugs.

I hit wikipedia and the side effects scare me. Having a heart attack scares me more. I take the pills and really don't feel them doing anything even after 2 weeks. The doctor has said that I have to cut down on the sodium as well as the shitty foods. Get more exercise etc etc blahblahblah no more fun...

Then we go on the road to Florida. To work. To do what we do for a living. Let me tell you that the road is not kind to someone looking to "cut back". There is almost nothing available in a gas station or fast food restaurant that isn't packed to the gills with evil. Real evil. Do they really need to use babies slathered in lard to make a Wendy's double? It's bad food. I've always known this. I am not naive. But once you start reading those packages, desperate for something to eat, you cannot help but get discouraged. That's why I used to ignore those labels. So that I may live in blissful ignorance. I tried ordering off IHOP's 'Healthy Menu'. and even without bacon or sausage or anythin obviously bad it STILL had 1,100 mg of sodium. Just so you know, a low sodium diet should be under 2,000mg per DAY. In the end we found a grocery store and bought some tuna, bread and sugar free cookies. Can't use lunchmeat, too much frickin sodium.

That actually worked out pretty well. Convention food is brutally expensive as well as super evil. I'm happy to save some money, it's just hard to find time to make a sandwich. When we got back home we went shopping at WalMart. I found plain chicken breast was filled with more sodium than I could have imagined. I had to get the "Super Healthy Cuts" . These didn't have the extra crap and yet they cost more. That is a swell racket.

I know that making these changes will improve my health. I also know that I have very little willpower. Give up wings forever? Ha! But I suppose I can cut back. It's strange but I think I can actually taste the extra salt now in regular foods now when I eat them. Am I crazy?

And another thing? Rossana's blood pressure is actually too LOW. She needs more salt dammit! I'm thinking of getting her a salt lick.

I hope I can stick with this. Our work schedule and travel has meant that we've slipped in our eating habits. Rossana has always been good, but even she has slipped and it's my fault. I have stuck with one healthier choice so far. A couple months ago I cut way back on diet cola (caffine). I switched to water or diet 7 up and I'm actually less twitchy. Maybe if I stick with this I'll loose a few pounds and feel better as a result. We shall see...

The Cult of Done Manifesto

From here:

The Cult of Done Manifesto

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you're done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

I have a lot of projects that I am constantly thinking about or working on. But I sometimes get stuck because I don't have the right part, or the right tool or the right materials. I need to stop procrastinating on these things. The list above is a good set of guidelines. Although I disagree with abandoning a project if you haven't started on a project in a week.

Remember this guy?

Joe the plumber. I first heard about him during the Presidential debates. A seeming everyman. A hardworking average American just trying to get ahead is a tough world. Both sides tripped over themselves to garner his vote. To show who would help Joe out more. In the end, Joe ignored the fact the Obama's tax plan would save him more money and he sided with McCain.

I can understand that. Ones choice of President isn't always motivated my self interest. Joe might have supported McCain's foreign policy plans, or worried that Obama lacked executive experience. But then we started to learn who Joe was. And Joe turned out to be A) A bit dim and B) A bit of a dick.

But that didn't stop him . No sir. He went on the campaign trail with McCain, even though he eventually said he didn't like McCain at all. He did like Palin. A LOT. And that right there pretty much ruined ANY shred of credibility the man had. He was no longer an everyman. He was a moron. He railed against the government and how it could do nothing right, despite the fact that he has enjoyed protections provided by immunizations, fire departments, police and our national army. He drives on safe roads, eats (mostly) untainted foods can go to public libraries and enjoy the benefits of Social Security when he gets old and yet this tax delinquent squeels about how our country is going Socialist.

Undaunted by reality, he worked hard to extend his 15 minutes. He went to the Middle East and bemoaned the fact that we can't outright censor the media. Whines how he would punch out other elected officials if he himself were elected to office. And then....he wrote a book.

Here's picture of his signing:


He sold, I believe, 5 copies. Your 15 minutes sir, are up. But if you want to experience a little more schadenfreude check out the reviews over at Amazon.com. Priceless:

RINO spinmeisters, aided and abetted by the liberal media, have promoted Joe the Plumber as being an everyman, the archetypical "average American." This book shatters that image.

Joe the Plumber is not the "average American." He's the "average conservative," and I thank God for that.

Last year, the "average American" elected an Harvard educated constitutional law professor to the presidency. Average conservatives knew better. They rallied behind Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin, people like ourselves; people I proudly call "mediocre Americans."

And that's why Joe is still so immensely popular. He's angry, vicious, ignorant, and intellectually incurious. He's one of us, and like us, he didn't learn about public policy and international relations at a university or from books or journals; he learned everything he needed to know by tuning into Rush, Hannity, Savage, and Ingraham.

This is a great book, one every true conservative should buy, and more importantly, read. Yes, I know that sounds like a tall order, but it's an easy read. Joe uses one and two syllable words (many of them, written forms of various grunts) almost exclusively. If I have one complaint, it's that the publisher, Pearlgate, printed it in ink rather than crayon like the original manuscript. Other than that, I think it truly is the perfect book for the average conservative.