This is the baddest day of my life

When I was three, I wrote myself a note that said, "this is the baddest day of my life".  I then put it in my file that had all my important documents like my birth certificate.  I can't believe that I was three when I wrote that, but thinking that I could have gotten the date wrong is just not possible.  I must admit though, I did spell "baddest" incorrectly...what an idiot.  Please note though that even at three, I used a period.

I'm not sure what happened that day and I realized that even at such a young age my memory was fallible, so it was good form for me to write some way to remember the travesties that occurred.  At a much later date, I wrote a note (now lost) stating that "Mom favors Kathy".  I'm sure a similar injustice occurred on March 25, 1974.  When addressing the matter with my parents, they are rather tight-lipped.  I'm sure that they are guilty of some heinous deed.

Today wasn't the baddest day.  To say so would cloud the already faded memory of 3/25/74.  However, today was a no good day...a no good day indeed.  I went to my eye appointment because of cloudiness in my left eye.  Well, I think partly because I have obscured vision in my left eye, I ran over a parking lot raised island.  This completely blew out my tire which I left in the parking lot as I went in to my appointment.

In my appointment, I learned that I had a virally induced corneal ulcer, which sounds so serious, but isn't that big of a deal.  When I went out to get my car, Greg was out there putting on my spare, which he first had to fill with air.  This was something that made my no good day, not so bad.  My eye appointment was next to a tire place and they replaced my tire and gave us a matching one at 4:55, even though they closed at 5:00.  That also made my no good day a little better.  However, it wasn't at all free, so I'm calling that event even.

I then went to get my three medications for my eye filled at Target....$200 and they have to special order one of them.

In other news, Greg diagnosed the ulcers before I went to my primary care doctor back in December.  Well, he said "you've got holes in your eyes".  He was right.  If only my primary care doctor actually looked at my eye this could have been taken care of a lot sooner.  She is now my previous primary care doctor.

Oh...and one of my fillings fell out.

Lard diet, the only solution.

Warts and all

I have pink eye...or rather I have something that is making my eye pink.  It has been going on for at least a month and I'm sure I picked it up from clinicals.  There is no yellow discharge, so I figured it was viral conjunctivitis.  However, it has lasted too long and there is only so long I can say "my contacts are bugging me" at work before they catch on to the fact that I don't wear contacts. 
(not my eye)

So, I went to the doctor.  She didn't look in my eye.  She didn't check my pupil size.  I swear one is smaller than the other.  I said symptoms like it hurts my affected eye when I look at light with my unaffected eye.  Perhaps it is iritis, which could be treated with anti-inflammatory medicine and dilation.  She just gave me a prescription for an antibiotic eye drop even though I said that I had been using one to no avail just to rule out bacterial infection. 

I then showed her a wart that has appeared above my eyebrow.  (Don't worry, it looks manly and like a mole).  She said that a dermatologist would have to remove warts.  I can understand her hesitation of removing a wart on a face, but all warts?  Time to find another doctor. 

I need to make a batch of Greg's wart remover.  It is pure salicylic acid mixed with a little bit of lotion.  It works better than anything and the wart is just gone in a couple of days from one application.  The problem is that it is hard to order pure salicylic acid unless you are a school or laboratory.  Sigh...

By the way, do not do a search for warts using the google image search, unless you want to look at a lot of warty genitals.

Hello 21st Century, It's me, Patrick.

Greg and I are finally doing it.  We are getting rid of our home phone and getting real cell phones, or mobile phones as the kids are calling it now-a-days.  Greg is most hesitant about this new era of communication.  I suggested that he just get a phone so I can contact him.  Who else does he talk to on the phone?  No one!  He hates the phone.  So it is ironic that he chose the LG enV Touch for his phone. 

It's super high tech and requires an internet connection fee.  Then he swears up and down that he is going to throw it in a drawer and never look at it in some sort of passive-aggressive action towards his phone.  That's fine, but why didn't he just get some free jobby with no features.  He better become a phone junky or I swear....pow, right in the kisser. I, on the other hand, simply wanted a Qwerty keyboard.   So, I got the very cute and functional Razzle.


Why does the base swivel, you ask?  I ask, why wouldn't it.  It very clearly is also used as an mp3 player and has a slot for adding an additional 16 GB.  That's more than I'll ever need.  My original Dell DJ mp3 player is looking clunkier than ever.
 

Pickle Surprise

I don't like pickles. Well, I thought that I didn't like pickles. I really only always had the Vlassic pickles that are on the shelf. Then I had a sandwich at a deli and I thought that the pickle was very tasty. So, I bought Clausen pickles from the refrigerated section. They are so good. I can't stop eating them. Maybe I'm pregnant.


In other ironically related news, I seem to have developed a sensitivity to cucumber seeds and pickles are no exception. I knew that I had problems with cucumbers, but for some reason I thought pickles would be exempt. I guess they aren't as bad. Cucumbers make me feel like I'm going to die. Pickles just make me uncomfortable...totally worth it!

Passport photos and more

I just got my new passport and I am absolutely disgusted with the picture.  Rather than hide my shame, I've decided to just show it to the masses.  First, here is my old passport photo:

I used to hate this picture, but now I like it because I can compare it to my new passport photo.  I think my new passport photo makes me look like Pogo, the clown.  Pogo, of course, was John Wayne Gacy, the infamous murderer.  Here is a picture of him:

I really should have chosen a color photo (you'll see why below).  However, I find his hat in this picture particularly disturbing.  Clowns are creepy.  It goes without saying this is especially true when they are mass murders.

And here is my new passport photo:

Luckily, the passport lines obscure the overall effect of the picture, but you can tell.  Yes, indeed, I do have my lower lip sticking out as if to pout.  The photo does also add many shades of red to my face adding to the clown-like effect.  If I don't think of John Wayne Gacy, then I'm liable to think of Droopy the dog. 

In other news, I picked up pizza today from Cafe Verdi.  (I know, I know, from the picture, I clearly don't need pizza).  Anyway, I like the Cafe Verdi pizza, it is cheap and it tastes great.  There are some drawbacks though.  First, the place smells horrible.  This isn't a problem if you take it to go.  Second, I noticed a couple of these hung up high on the walls:

Evil eye protection amulets.  Then I noticed that they spoke some sort of Eastern European language that I couldn't make out.  They're gypsies...dirty, foul-mouthed, mean, no tipping gypsies.  I hate gypsies.  I've had too many experiences with these horrible people at the blackjack tables.  I'm torn between my love of good, cheap pizza and the generalized hatred of an already persecuted people.

Las Vegas Harvest Festival

Greg and I are sick of Las Vegas.  There, I said it.  It's hot and this city has no real, local flavor.

Actually, it has a local flavor, but I don't like the taste of alcohol, big boobs and pretentious money.

In comes the Las Vegas Harvest Festival.  We saw the ads on TV and thought that it looked lame but fun for an afternoon.  After all, they showed people eating roasted corn and other people holding up plastic bags and exclaiming how they love free stuff.  That's two of my favorite things, roasted corn and free stuff.  How could we not go?  Right?  I mean even if it is bad, we can still eat roasted corn and partake in a lame goodie bag.  Hey, even a lame goodie bag is a good goodie bag.  Plus, we could look at produce and junk, right?  I think the actual tag line was "food, fun, arts, crafts and free stuff!"

The lead up to the day we planned to go offered up some bad news.  It costs money to get in.  It costs $9 each to get in.  Greg wondered what would happen if Walmart charged for people to get in to shop.  He makes a good point.  So, people pay money to have booths in the festival and people pay to get into the festival.  Whoever is putting this on is one greedy SOB.  They have to pay for a venue and the horrible live band playing in the back that interested no one.  In return, they get this wonderful double dip of money from vendors and shoppers. 

Well, we were desperate for something different.  Greg woke me up early to go.....oh damn, I forgot that.  The stupid festival was only open until 5:00 PM.  This stupid "24-hour" town rolls up its sidewalk after 5PM for anyone that isn't drunk, horny or gambling.  It seems the only thing open late is Barnes and Noble, which Greg and I have gone to on several, bored occasions.  One time, after going to Barnes and Noble, we got pulled over at a DUI checkpoint.  First time for that, I think we were the only ones that weren't getting arrested though.  

We get in the car after I found two canned goods items to get $2 off each.  They donate it to some battered women's shelter, because that is what Las Vegas has plenty of, battered women.   We went to pick up our friend, TIna.  In the car, I felt bad because I forgot to mention the canned goods discount.  However, quite oddly, Tina had a can of roast beef in her purse.  Fortune favors those who carry canned goods.  There was actually a reason why she was carrying the can of roast beef around, but I like to leave that a mystery.

We get there and they are charging $3 for parking.  Thus far, this shopping experience has cost us three: $24, a jar of spaghetti sauce, a can of peaches and a can of roast beef.  However, we were hungry and ready to get to the roasted corn. 

You can probably guess from my build-up that there was no roasted corn, as presented in the commercials.  The kicker was that there was not a lot in the way of prepared food.  "Food" was in their tagline.  However, the only prepared food was a place that had dried out chicken fried steaks and the convention center concession stand with $8 hamburgers.  So, by food, they meant the ample soup and dip mix stands that were everywhere mixed in with places selling beef jerky, candy, jams, and vinegar.  There were three places selling vinegar and one of them was named "Tres Classique", a name that makes me picture a redneck trying to be pretentious (not that there is anything wrong with rednecks or being pretentious).  We weren't really able to approach the soup and dip mix stands as they were always surrounded by snot-nose kids gobbling up the free samples.

There was no produce, so the name "Harvest" was a bit misleading.  At least there was the free stuff, right?  I saw people walking around with the same goodie bags that I saw people on TV holding up..  I figured that we just haven't come across the free stuff  place yet.  Tina suggested that maybe we were too late and they ran out.  For $24 and canned goods, I better get free stuff.  I found the free stuff booth and they weren't out.  I was finally going to experience the excitement of getting free stuff.  It's a high I never get tired off.  I didn't care if it was tampon samples, I was elated.  It turned out that the free stuff, the thing that pleased the happy people on TV, was the plastic bag.  So, when they were holding up the plastic bag on the TV and saying "free stuff", they weren't referring to the stuff in the bag, they were referring to the cheap, plastic bag.

This place was a crap fest.  Basically, if you could operate tin snips or a leather punch, you could have a booth.  Here is an example of some of the crafts:


Put a picture of a cat sleeping on a T-shirt under the banner "Nap Attack" and you know the type of arts and crafts that were at this show.  Very cheap, homemade stuff mixed in with semi-professional stuff.  It was all overpriced.  A stupid wind chime made with small wrenches cost $39.  A lamp made out of plastic was $70.  I bought mustard for $5.50, which is a rip off, but hey, I needed mustard.  I also bought some soap.  Greg knew that I was going to buy it before I did and said so to Tina, because it was a gay couple running the place.  Damn him, he was right.  It was a perfect trifecta of selling points for me:  homemade soap, gay couple and bay rum scent.  I just love homemade soap. 

So, this is the local flavor of Las Vegas.  Overpriced, screw-you-anyway-possible-out-of-your-money, crap.

But wait, it's not local flavor, the Las Vegas Harvest Festival is a traveling festival.  This crap fest wasn't even local.  What a slap in the face!

We do have a local farmer's market, but I hear that it is just as bad.