Blankshield

'Twas a good weekend overall. Friday night gaming went well, if on the shortish side, but I think I'm finally starting to get into the swing of things as far as TROS goes, and aim my story at the character's SA's. Which is, of course, gobblydegook to most folks reading this, but suffice it to say that The Riddle of Steel has a mechanic at character creation that says "these things matter to my character" which is a sneaky and underhanded way of making the players say "I want a story about these things".

Raven let me sleep in on Saturday, which was magnificent, and going above and beyond the call of duty on her part and then took Kale and Jasen out to Costco for Adventures in Candy Floss to give me some good 1-on-1 time with the Conman. While the kids were (mostly) napping we assisted some bookcases to migrate and other sundry things, then I went off to Scritch's for another round of playtesting on the new improved Rocket Flight/High Trader.

That went really well, I think. Discounting time off for food and sidetracks for "does this rule work as intended?" we played a complete game in about 4 hours, for 30-some turns. Scritch won solidly, but not by a degree that seemed excessive, and the various components worked well together, and kept things interesting.

It did, however, keep me from getting home until nearly 5 am, and I got up with the kids and then went off to a Lego train get-together to poke at our fall setup. All together this meant that by the time supper rolled around I was grumpy and barely competent to perform basic tasks. I begged off the regular Sunday night Catan and Raven was kind enough to volunteer to put down the kids, which meant I was able to crash around 8:30-9.

Tonight: houseful of large noisy gamers. Yay.

James

Various and sundry things about my eyes.


I went to the Gimble Eye Center yesterday, where they looked at my eyes through various tools, measured my perscription in about 4 different ways and put drops in my eyes to make them HUGE and light sensitive and unable to focus properly.

Their conclusion was much the same as VisionMed: PRK isn't sufficient for my eyes and I don't have enough cornea for LASIK. No instant laser zappy-zappy for James.

However, what they can do for me is something called Insertable Contact Lenses. They basically put a contact lens in between my current lens and the cornea. The two main advantages of this are that the vision stabilizes much more quickly and it doesn't do anything to existing elements of my vision, which means, among other things, they can take it out.
The main disadvantage of this is that, unlike the various corneal surgeries, it is an intraoccular procedure (which is to say: poking holes in my eye). This carries with it all the inherent risks of surgery in the eye, like retinal detachement, infection, induced astigmatism and all that lovely stuff.

Annecdotaly, patients who have had ICL are also strongly advised against blows to the head. The surgeon did not appraise me of this, but a certain Walrus of my acquaintance (who knows someone with ICL) passed it on, which is why it's annecdotal and not listed as a potential complication.

They've passed my file on to Dr. Gimble (who would be the surgeon doing it if it is being done), who will review and respond with a yea or nay in 2-4 weeks.

In general, Gimble made a much better impression on me that VisionMed. I was actually seen and assessed by a doctor (near the end, and briefly) as well as a technician and their battery of tests was broader, although that last is presumably also because they are assessing for potential invasive surgeries rather than just corneal surgeries.

However, speaking of VisionMed, they called me back this morning. The surgeon in Vancouver has evaluated my case, and I am 'an excellent candidate' for ZYOPTIX.

Marg. Now what?

James

Heyo. Is there anyone who reads my blog that can drive and isn't doing anything tomorrow afternoon?

I'm going into the Gimble Eye Center tomorrow for them to hum and haw over my eyes, and tell me how expensive it will be to fix them. Part of this process has them putting stuff in my eyes that will render them painfully light sensitive and me unable to drive.

The current plan is for Raven to drive me out and me to cab back in, but I figured it doesn't hurt to ask and see if there's other options.

thanks,

James

Meme me up, Scotty...

1. Who are you?
2. Are we friends?
3. When and how did we meet?
4. Do you have a crush on me?
5. Would you kiss me?
6. Describe me in one word.
7. What was your first impression?
8. Do you still think that way about me now?
9. What reminds you of me?
10. If you could give me anything what would it be?
11. How well do you know me?
12. When's the last time you saw me?
13. Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn't?
14. Are you going to put this in your Blog/LiveJournal and see what I say about you?

James

Yeah. So, um, things. And stuff.

The long weekend/last week was good to me. Got decent amounts of sleep on at least two occaisions, saw Troy (good) and Van Helsing (bad). Played Space Hulk with Eric to fill time before Troy, and won, which I believe earns me bragging rights over Davyd.

Got a fair degree of pickup work around the house done; mowed lawns, built and hung a new gate for the back yard, performed general household tasks like cleaning and cooking. Did some Lego sorting to try and catch up to where I can actually work on things this summer. Despite avoiding new projects like the plague, I still have managed to pick up too much stuff before Gencon and the fall train show... Sigh.

And yup, that's life in a nutshell. Blogging as ordered, Mistress! ;p

James

Darg! I forgot to make soup last night. I knew there was something time consuming I wanted to accomplish yesterday that didn't happen. I also forgot to phone Davyd.

James

And today, the topic is "people with no sense of scale"

This morning, I had a Priority 1 call to service a printer. A printer with a paper jam. I went, I cleared the jam, it worked fine. I successfully refrained from eviscerating anyone.

Priority 1 calls are required to be responded to immediately, as in "drop whatever you're doing, unless it will land on someone's head." and must be fixed in 4 hours, as in "240 minutes from the time the user gets off the phone". They are a big deal. When they are logged, the user is read a statement that they have to agree to, explaining how big a deal P1's are, and that they are *ONLY* to be used for plant critical equipment. As in "work will stop if this is not fixed." A paper jam in one of five (count 'em: FIVE) network printers in a building is about as far off the scale as, umm, a dirty keyboard. Especially when, and this is the other part that has me irate, if they had bothered to open the damn printer and looked inside, they would have seen the paper, could have pulled it out their own lazy selves, and never had to call in at all.

Grr.

And where the hell did this "today's topic" thing come from?

James

And today's topic is "Well that must be how it was meant to turn out."

There are three major varieties of laser eye surgery these days, in order of old --> new:

PRK
LASIK/LASEK
ZYOPTIX

Each of these is roughly a "generation" of technology. Without getting into technical details, PRK would be "look ma, lasers!" LASIK would be "look ma, Lasers for nearly blind people!" and the newest of them, ZYOPTIX (around in Canada for a bit over a year; longer south of the border) is "Look ma, lasers with computers!" Now that you've had the hillbilly summation, you should be able to follow along with the rest of the class.

My evaluation today covered LASIK and ZYOPTIX (they didn't evaluate PRK because I'm too blind). It turns out that I'm not eligible for LASIK; I don't have enough tissue in my cornea for them to shave enough off to correct my vision and still have enough cornea left to be, well, a cornea. I may or may not be eligble for ZYOPTIX, depending on the doctors assessment. The pretty young lady I saw today said it was likely, but not certain; I should hear back tomorrow (if the doctor assesses it today) or Monday (if he doesn't). If I'm not eligible, they can assess for PRK, which I'm probably OK for, but there's not a whole lot of point because PRK can't zap my eyes enough to get me anywhere useful... I'll still need glasses for all aspects of life; it couldn't even bring me near to 20/40 (Ok to drive) even if it went perfectly.

So even if I had gotten assessed for LASIK lo these many years ago, I would have been told "Sorry, you don't have enough cornea".

So I may be either stuck behind glasses until the next generation (I'm predicting it'll be called CORNE-O-ZAPPER), or they will fly me to Vancouver overnight, where I will have my eyes zapped expensively. On the plus side, I was strongly leaning in that direction anyway, as ZYOPTIX has a strong drop vs LASIK in post-operative side effects like lessening of night vision, haloing etc, and can in fact correct those "higher order abberations" in the cornea. On the minus side, I may be stuck behind glasses for the rest of my life.

Of course, the cynical side of me is asking "Is that a line of crap to make me go for the expensive new technique?" I hope not. The pretty young lady looked so sincere.

James

Today's topic expands on the theme "Defeating procrastination with organized violence."

On and off, over the last year, I've been contemplating getting laser eye surgery again. I've mostly been doing so because my glasses desperately need replacing again.

Several years back, I investigated the options fairly thoroughly, spoke to people who had it done; read material published by yes-man, naysayers and uninvolveds alike. I had pretty much come to the conclusion that there was an vanishingly small chance of making things worse, a very strong chance of not needing glasses ever again, and a moderate likelyhood of lessened night vision. So as a final step in the process, I went to see my eye doc, the guy I've been seeing since my first pair of glasses some (mumble mumble) years ago to get new glasses (I was again well overdue) and see what his opinion of the surgery was. His response was (essentially) "Oh, I do that." which firmly laid to rest my few remaining misgivings.

So I set about getting the funds together and associated scheduling, and (being who I am) took about a year to get around to making the appointment. Imagine my surprise (and the dread rewoken in my gut) when the receptionist said rather blithely "No, Dr. Buski doesn't perform eye surgery anymore."

Oh.

Oooookaaaay... maybe I'll think on this a little longer. Imagine my annoyance when, several months down the road, relating all this at a family gathering, my father mentions that it's probably because Dr. Buski is retired. You would THINK that's the sort of information a receptionist would volunteer, but it seems otherwise. In any case, the moment had passed, the money was spent elsewhere, and I had glasses that were relatively new; I could wait - and have been, to the point where my glasses now need replacing as badly as they did the first time around.

Cue the kick in the head.

(Ok, not a kick, but it's more dramatic saying it that way.) During light sparring at kung fu last night, my glasses were broken. Rather irreparably. They are jury-rigged with scotch tape right now, but the frames are toast. Snapped right below the screw that holds the lens in.

Had this not happened, I probably would have dithered around for at least another 6 months or so, possibly even just gone and gotten new glasses instead of bothering to hunt down an eye surgery place again. Now, I've booked an evaluation for Friday.

So the moral of the story is: Defeat procrastination, engage in organized violence.

James

Blech. Sometime between my last post and now, Blogger has totally rearranged how they look and organize things. Which is, of course, their perogative. Things aren't actually harder to find, although they are in different places, it's mostly that disconcerting "Is this the right site?" feeling. It's like seeing some total stranger in the store who says "Hey, James! Long time no see" and they were a friend in high school that looks completely different.


I'd actually come here to post about credulity. Or more precisely, the over-abundance of it in western society. I rarely get chain e-mail or forwards of viral hoaxes etc from friends and family. Partly this is because I have a relatively smart set of friends and family, and partly because on the few occaisions I do get one, I will take a few minutes out of my day, track down at least one link that shows up the invariably false or misleading aspects (Usually Snopes), and post a reply that depending on my day is either polite and terse or scathing.

In conversations (usually at work; with friends I talk about things we care about, which isn't usually random water cooler talk) I will occaisionally ask for a citation or a source whenever somebody spouts a particularly convenient fact or survey result. For reasons unbeknownst to me, this will garner looks as though I've mutated into some sort of horned demon or alien. As though the thought running the other person's head is "Whoa! What alien world did this guy grow up on?" This however, is nothing compared to the sorts of looks I recieve when (as sometimes happens) I get into a debate over something, and either use proper debating methods, or disregard spurious elements. When I bring up something like "That's a straw man argument" or "you're arguing from authority" or "correlation does not equal causation" I pretty much invariably get either blank looks or dirty looks. The blank looks I understand; there was a time when I knew nothing about couching an arguement properly and sticking to the actual subject matter. The dirty looks irritate me though, becuase it means the other person isn't thinking "hunh?" they're thinking "How dare you question me?" or possibly "Damn, he caught me."

So why is it that this is so? Why is it considered unusual to the point of rudeness to say "That's interesting. Where did you hear/read that?" Why is it that in the same environment where people are often mildly pitied for religious belief ("James is a smart guy; seems odd to me that he's christian") it is not even blinked at when someone presents an arguement for drinking 16 cups of water a day (water only: other fluids, or water intake via food doesn't count) with his backup for that boiling down to "I read it on the internet"?

Not that this particular discussion took place recently, or anything...

And in the interests of being pedantic: the Snopes dissection of the dehydration myth

And I got off my lazy butt and implemented Haloscan. Thank you to the several people who e-mailed to let me know it's almost painfully easy. I figured it was; I was just too lazy to check for myself. :)

James

It is not, I repeat NOT, snowing.

James
"Denial isn't just a river in Egypt"

Yeah yeah, lolly blogger, whatever.

---
I saw again this weekend something that I've meant to comment on before, but not gotten around to. PETA has a billboard on the Yellowhead that has a picture of a pig and a picture of a slightly grimy young girl/woman (presumably meant to invoke the young women who went missing at Picton's pig farm, and who may well have ended up in sausage across western Canada over the last couple years). The caption reads "Neither of us is meat."

To which my instant response was "Yes you are." I mean, meat is muscle tissue, humans and pigs have muscle tissue, ergo, they are meat (ignoring the semantic quibble).

I've come to expect PETA to make blatant emotional appeals and baldly misrepresent things in their ongoing quest to deny the omnivorous nature of humans, but really, a blind denial like this is kind of embarassing. I mean, come on guys, you're like those poor bastards who want to legislate PI=3.

James