I Can See Clearly Now!

12.16.2005

After nearly 7 days of being sick, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Wait, that can be taken in a good way and a bad way. Well, I don't think I'm about to die, so I'll just hope everyone is taking it the right way.

My fever broke yesterday, so I'm no longer having weird dreams involving the dog from the old Buster Brown shoe commercials. I'm still taking antibiotics (with another 5 days worth left), so I'm not out of the woods yet. Everything has evolved basically into a sinus cold now, so I'm taking Sudafed and Afrin to make my raspy breathing more enjoyable.

Being in the house for a week, I find that it doesn't really bother me - I tend to not get cabin fever like a lot of people do. Granted, for most of the time I've been awake an hour or two at the time in between naps, but now that I'm starting to feel better I don't have that urge to get out and do something.

It could be because I know those Christmas shoppers and all of their traffic is out there.

The only thing I've really managed to do this week, in between napping, has been to watch the first season of Smallville. I had been putting off watching it, in part because I wanted to get in the mindset of Superman: 90210, plus I knew I would either hate it and never want to see any of the shows, or I would love it and get hooked into it. Well, I think I've gotten hooked. Oddly enough, it's because of Lex Luthor. In the comics he always comes across as evil, pure and simple. In the show, you know how he's going to turn out, but he just has that intangible charisma that makes me want to like him. So now I have another hobby - catching up on 4 (or 5) seasons of Smallville.

Permalink movies/tv/dvd random

Rain/Pour Scenario 214

12.13.2005

The following was written while running a fever and taking a handful of antibiotics, Tylenol, and some really good cough syrup. Odds are that even if everything is spelled right, it's not going to make any sense.

Saturday night at the Spiritus X-mas party I let loose a mighty cough. I continued to cough off an on the rest of the night. Sunday I continued said cough, and after checking I found I was running a fever. This led to my semi-annual visit to the doctor, this time to find out I have am Upper Respiratory Infection. I'm a little paranoid about URIs, since I had one back in '95 that led to a Bronchial Tract Infection that had me hacking up a lung for 3 weeks. The good new is that this is a Bacterial infection instead of a viral infection, so maybe I haven't spread this little plague around. The doc hooked my up with antibiotics and cough syrup, and except for feeling like hell for a few days I should be fine.

It's been a while since I ran a fever for multiple days. I tend to get lightheaded and loopy and the smallest sign of a fever (yes, more than normal), so I tend to sleep as much as I can. Since Sunday, I've been sleeping 4-6 hours, get up for about an hour and drink 34 ounces of water to make sure I keep hydrated, then repeat. I'm not used to laying my head down and immediately going to sleep.

To add to my plight, I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom (that 34 ounces of water has to get out somehow), shuffling along in the dark, as is my way. On the way back, I promptly kicked the metal bed stand. I'm pretty sure I ended up breaking my pinky toe, because when I looked at it this morning, it was some lovely shades of red and purple.

I think it's just safer if I stay in bed until this is all over.

Permalink random

Inventory

12.08.2005

I've got a lot of DVDs. More DVDs than I probably should. According to the counter on my DVD page, I currently have 630 DVDs. Some of them are barely an hour, such as the animated Star Wars Clone Wars. Some are multi disc, 20 hour epics like any of the 28 seasons of Star Trek shows that I have sitting on shelves.

Since I do lend my movies out, I get curious every once in a while to see what movies have gone missing. I try to keep up with who has what, but I'm not a video store. I've got a little app that I made up that lets me go through and manually mark what movies I do and do not have. With 630 movies, it sounds a little labor intensive since I actually go through and physically shuffle around the movies I have to mark them as being present, but it only takes about 3 hours to go through them all - and I think 200 movies/hour is a pretty good speed.

After my latest sorting through, I've managed to lose track of 26 DVDs. Some of them, I know where they are. Some, totally lost. This year, I'm making a list of the missing ones and giving it as "DVDs I want for Xmas" to those that may just have some extra DVDs laying around. Why do I want the missing DVDs? Am I going to watch Season 4 of Sex and the City again? Well, probably not. It's more my weird sense of collecting things, along with being able to lend the missing ones out to somebody different if ever asked.

It would be fun to watch My Blue Heaven again, though. Because I don't believe in tipping. I believe in over tipping.

Permalink movies/tv/dvd

Oh, A Christmas Tree

12.01.2005

I finally did it. After 6 Christmases in my own house (and no telling how many before), I've finally delved into a bit of the Christmas spirit and now have a christmas tree. 4½ feet of green plastic, multi colored lights, and some fiber optic strands of holiday cheer.

I don't know why I got one. I'm not hosting any holiday parties. There are no children to tempt with Santa's goodness. I was just feeling christmassy this year. Of course, now it's obvious I know nothing about christmas trees. I see a hole in the branches, go to fluff out the branches to cover the hole, and somehow I think I create 2 more holes while I'm at it.

But it doesn't matter. I'm trying to be festive and one with the holiday spirit!

The next step is surrounding the tree with wresting figures.

Permalink random

eBay-riffic

11.28.2005

Around this time of year, I notice that MSNBC runs a couple of their eBAY specials way more than normal. Who are these people that are selling? Who's buying? Who's getting screwed? I remember watching it last year, thinking it was interesting, until they got to the part harping on buyers that never get their products and what corporate eBay is (or isn't) doing about it.

I've been a buying things off eBay since '99. I still remember my first purchase: Danger Girl Action Figures. They were hard to find, especially around here, so I ended up paying a little more on eBay so that I could possess them. From there, I found many things that would come to be either eBay specific purchases (like original comic art or hard to find wrestling figures) or something I was trying to find a good deal on (like my now complete collection of all things Star Trek - except for the unreleased animated series). 98% of the time I've had good experiences. There have been a couple of auctions that I never received the product and I didn't get my money back - I usually waited to long to make my "hey, I didn't get it" claim. That was when my prime eBay rule came into effect: Don't bid anything I can't afford to lose.

I've bought over 200 items off eBay. Some have come from China. I think 1 auction was from a guy in Rogersville, 20 miles down the road. I've bought original Vigilante artwork from Paul Kupperburg, one of the writers of the series. I bought both the Complete Star Trek Voyager and Enterprise series through eBay. This year I've been completing my collection of Car Wars rules and supplements. I would be a person who thinks that eBay, for all of its detractors and problems, for all of it's hidden fees and relying on the community to police itself, for all of that, I would think that it works, and it works well.

So the next time that MSNBC shows their special, or god forbid FOX gets on the bandwagon and makes it worse, I'll just roll my eyes and ignore it, hoping it doesn't put a damper on my [mostly] good luck so far.

As a special bonus, take a look at eBay's prohibited and questionable item list. It has the obvious things like firearms and alcohol, but used airbags? Is there a market for used airbags?

Permalink random