This Blog is going to Suck

This one's going to suck. Yep, I'll admit it. Today I'm writing for “shits & giggles” with no topic, no direction, no plan. Just typing away for really no good reason. I started blogging a few years ago, eventually moving into a weekly format, then back to sporadic, and now trying to get back into a weekly format. The problem with trying to do a weekly format, especially when your blog has no central theme (it is called Chaotic Commentary after all), is picking a subject every week. There are thousands of blogs on the Internet. There are gaming blogs, technical blogs, political blogs, religious blogs, etc. I never wanted mine to become that specific. Ergo, I have tried to write about different things every week. Now, though, it seems like I am at a point where I may have to start repeating topics. I really did not want to end up doing that, but I suppose there are only so many topics out there that I am familiar enough with to be able to write about. I guess repeating subjects is not really a bad thing, I just do not want this to become stale. So for today, this blog sucks because it's about absolutely nothing. But I figure, if I do not write something, even something that sucks, I could lose the rhythm of writing and that would be worse than the risk of repeating myself. See you next week.

~ JC

The Truth Is Out There

We've all gotten them and probably still get them; the dreaded email with a subject line that begins with “FWD.” We look to see who sent it, and sure enough, it's “that person”; the one who always sends forwards of LoLCats, promises of receiving $1 for everyone we forward it to ourselves, and various other supposed “I swear to God this is true” nonsense. The question is, why? Most of this crap is just that, crap! It has been floating around the Internet for as long as the Internet has existed. In fact, I've gotten emails from people as little as a few months ago that I had also previously gotten as much as five years ago! Are people really that stupid? I have to ask. It's not like there's no way to find definitive proof of whether or not the myriad of garbage that hits our in-boxes is true or not. By now I would hope that just about everyone has at least heard of Snopes. So my question would be, if you've heard of Snopes, and you get an email like that, why the hell wouldn't you go look it up on Snopes before forwarding it to the ten people in less than .5 seconds it asks you to? I mean really folks, the old saying “if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is” applies. What's more is, Snopes is not even the only source of finding out if that “FWD: DON'T DELETE THIS! I SWEAR IT'S TRUE” email really is true or not (and trust me, 99% plus of them are bogus). There is also Hoax Busters (which I had been using before discovering Snopes), and About.com's “Current Internet Hoaxes, Email Rumors & Urban Legends” page, to name only two.

My general rule of thumb is, if the email subject line starts with FWD and is from a particular person who's notorious for sending forwards of this type, I just delete it without reading it. I will, however, on occasion read it to see which bullshit legend the person is perpetrating this time, look it up on one (or more) of the afore mentioned debunking sites, then hit 'reply to all' and send everyone that received the forward the link (or links) to prove it's bullshit in the hopes that the spreading of the bullshit will cease. For the most part, it's worked. At least, the friends and family members who used to send that sort of thing have stopped sending it to me. I don't know if that means they finally wised up, or just got tired of me sending them links to Snopes articles, thereby making them feel stupid, but either way, I don't have to deal with the “FWD: OMG [fill in whatever varied hoax bullshit here]” emails very often anymore.

So, before you hit that forward button next time, or reply to that prince from some far off African nation, take a moment to look that subject line up on Snopes or a similar site. You just might be thankful you did. The truth is out there; you just have to take the time to search for it.

~JC

Internet Hoaxes, Email Rumors and Urban Legends Debunking Sites:

Snopes [http://www.snopes.com/]

Hoax Busters [http://www.hoaxbusters.org/]

About.com Current Internet Hoaxes, Email Rumors & Urban Legends [http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/internet/a/current_netlore.htm]

and don't forget to Google for other sites like these as well.

To My Beloved

It's Valentine's Day morning. You lay sleeping while I sit typing. As verbose as I am capable of being, words escape me now to express my love for you. The best I can manage is a poem stolen from another website.

You've Touched My Heart

You've given me a reason
For smiling once again,
You've filled my life with peaceful dreams
and you've become my closest friend.

You've shared your heartfelt secrets
And your trust you've given me,
You showed me how to feel again
To laugh, and love, and see.

If life should end tomorrow
And from this world I should part,
I shall be forever young
For you have touched my heart

I love you!
~ JC

Three shots to the gut...

That's what it felt like. It hurt even to walk. I felt like I was carrying a solid gold brick in my belly. So what'd I do? I went home early from work, and drank Milk of Magnesia thinking it was just severe constipation. Not having health insurance, and having a general hatred of the kind of inefficient bullshit that usually happens in hospital ER's, I waited a day and a half, still drinking laxatives, before finally going to see a doctor. After being poked, x-rayed and having blood taken, I waited (still in pain mind you, because I've never been to the doctor in pain and they actually offer my anything for it). A half-hour later I was told, very matter-of-factly by the express care doctor on duty that I was not constipated, but I have diverticulitis. He actually asked me if I wanted to be admitted or be treated as an out patient. Of course, I chose outpatient and I'm sure I missed out on a wonderful (not to mention overpriced) stay with Cumberland County Health “Care” Systems (yes, I put care in quotes on purpose, but that's another rant altogether). So, after another wonderful wait at Walgreen's for about an hour and a half for my meds that we were told would take thirty minutes and cost almost $150, I headed home where I've been for close to two weeks developing cabin fever, muscle atrophy, and a pretty fucked up sleeping pattern.

I can't believe I'm only 38 and I've developed an “old man” disease already. I mean really? Diverticulitis? I know I'm fat, but damn. And I'm not getting any younger, but what the hell? For those of you who don't know, and are to lazy to look it up, diverticulitis is a disease that effects the lower large intestines (aka, the colon). Little pockets, called diverticula, form along the wall of the colon. Sometimes things get stuck in those pockets and they can become infected, causing diverticulitis. It hurts like a mother frakker. Now, here's the fun part; it can cause both constipation or diarrhea – WTF? How can the same disease have two totally opposite symptoms? Anyway, suffice it to say that I now get to eat a wonderful “old-man”, high-fiber diet to help keep this from happening again. And for the record, Metamucil decidedly does not taste like Tang, don't let anyone fool you!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the medicine and what a joy that's been to take. Now, the pain killer prescribed was Vicodin; I'm down with that. Vicodin's some good stuff with a wonderful penchant for making me sleep, and I like sleep. The antibiotic however, was one I'd never heard of; a little $14+ per pill number called Levaquin (conveniently not available in a less expensive, generic form). I looked it up. It's used for treating venereal diseases! WTF? Oh, and it “may cause dizziness.” Said so right on the bottle. So, I have an antibiotic that causes dizziness and a pain killer that does the same. Oh, yay! I get to be loopy as hell for a week! But that's not all. Seems the Levaquin also has some other side effects like muscle soreness and muscle spasms, which I directly got to experience. Boy it sure was fun having my whole torso cramp at one time to the point that I couldn't catch a breath and was almost bucked out of my chair for a full 20 minutes. Oh, and then there was the not being able to lay down at all for several days after and having to sleep in a recliner, because going prone caused the spasms to make an encore. Yep, if the disease doesn't get you, the meds will, eh?

So, this whole adventure started about eleven days ago. I can tell the infection's gone (never mind how), but things still hurt inside and I'm still having cramps. My BM's are not normal. I can almost sleep laying down (so far the couch on my back works better than on the bed one my stomach which I would prefer). I'm afraid to eat for fear of the pain it will cause coming out the other end. When I do eat, I'm eating high fiber muffins and drinking Metamucil in the morning as though I'm 70 years old. I'm almost broke because I've not even been able to go in to pick up paycheks from the hours I worked before this happened, plus the fact that I've missed a week and a half of work already and I'm not really sure if I should try to go back to work tomorrow or not.

This has been a cautionary tale. Don't let this happen to you. It sucks and it hurts. And I have no frakkin' idea how it happened to me.

~ JC