The incision is healing up very nicely as well. I just took off the sterile tape today, and the cut was about the length of my finger.

DAMN.

So I went to a surgeon, and they scheduled me for surgery. I’ve never had anything like this done before so I was nervous. I was hoping that they could do this with just a local numbing, but they said that it might be between muscle, and there is no local numbing that they can do that would make that not hurt like hell.

Propofol is it then!

I did some looking online, and after talking with my doc, I felt pretty ok with the whole thing. I was going to be breathing on my own, and mostly responsive to the doctors during the operation, but I won’t remember anything. That worried me the most. I know that I’m a lovable kinda drunk, and I assumed that I would be the same way with the sedation. I just don’t like the idea of being all “I love you man” around people who are busy removing something from me.

So I went to my appointment in the morning, dressed into a nice little paper gown, got an IV, and went into an operation room for the first time. It was much more high-tech looking inside than I expected. There was already a group of doctors in there, and they all seemed nice. Darren, Bill, Deb, and Carlos (I think). Bill told me that he was going to start giving me something to relax, and I thought, “ok…oh my hand with the IV is getting warm, that’s odd. Man this is a cool dream. Oh I’m dreaming! They must be working on me. Crap, I’m coughing.” I tell them out loud, “Sorry for the coughing, I’m not messing you up am I?”

“Nope, you’re done”

Just like that, they were rolling me out of the room. I was surprised how clear I was after waking up. I got out of bed with no issue, put my clothes on with no problems, and waited for my ride to come back to say hi. I was in there for 30 minutes. By the way, they showed my what it was that they removed and it was about the size of a large hard-boiled egg. I should know the biopsy results in a week.

The nurse brought me my stuff, gave me some paperwork to read over, and told me what to do for the next 7-10 days, and then said, “have a good day!”

I walked out, and asked her to thank everyone involved. Then we went to McDonalds for breakfast. The rest of the day I was peeing every hour. They gave be 1000 cc of saline, an I used the whole bag.

That’s all. No need for any pain medications other than some Ibuprofen. Since I’m not going to use it, how do you get rid of Vicodin? Trash, toilet, or sell it?

We’re never going to be able to move out of this place. It’s a good thing that we kinda like living here.

who this

I have a Google Voice number in Arkansas. Sometimes I get wrong numbers. This is the first time that I got a text from a wrong number.

+18704947152: Wat up 10:35 PM

Me: Nothing, you? 10:36 PM

+18704947152: U know who this is 10:38 PM

Me: The great thing about singularities is that there are so many of them. 10:38 PM

Me: By all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out. 10:39 PM

+18704947152: Of wat 10:40 PM

Me: nope….please tell me 10:40 PM

Me: For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. 10:41 PM

+18704947152: King Hunt 10:42 PM

Me: We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. 10:42 PM

+18704947152: Who this 10:44 PM

Me: Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. 10:44 PM

Me: The persistent failures of controlled, double-blind experiments to support the claims of parapsychology suggest that what’s going on is nonsense rather than sixth sense. 10:46 PM

Me: Regarding the book, How to Defend Yourself Against Alien Abduction. I bought it, I read it, and I heeded its advice. I remain unabducted. 10:47 PM

Me: Science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance. 10:47 PM

+18704947152: Wat 10:49 PM

Me: Not only are we in the universe, the universe is in us. I don’t know of any deeper spiritual feeling than what that brings upon me. 10:49 PM

Me: I’m bullshitting you. You have the wrong number. 10:49 PM

+18704947152: Who this 10:49 PM

Me: I’ve just been sending you quotes of Dawkins, Sagan and Tyson. Did you like them? 10:50 PM

+18704947152: Wat 10:50 PM

Me: Did you like the quotes? 10:51 PM

Me: My personal favorites are from Sagan. 10:51 PM

+18704947152: Who this 10:52 PM

Me: King Shack….Which quote did you like the most? 10:52 PM

+18704947152: Stop playin who this 10:53 PM

Me: I’m not playing sir. Granted I have the unfortunate name of Shack, but I assure you that I am a King. What kingdom do you rule over? 10:55 PM

+18704947152: Ok stop playin 10:57 PM

Me: I think that it’s pretty obvious that you have the wrong number. 10:57 PM

+18704947152: I hope so 10:58 PM

Me: You hope so? Who do YOU think I am? 10:59 PM

+18704947152: Idk 10:59 PM

Me: I’m just a guy in Ohio. Who are you trying to reach? btw, did you like the quotes? 11:00 PM

+18704947152: Wat the hell 11:02 PM

Me: I have a number in Forrest City, AR. Like I said wrong number. Well I’m going to take off. Have a good one. Feel free to use those quotes whenever you like.11:03 PM

+18704947152: Lie 11:05 PM

Me: Nope not a lie. It’s called Google Voice. It’s neat. I can get any number that I want and forward it to any other number that I want. 11:07 PM

+18704947152: Ok 11:08 PM

Me: Go ahead and give me a call if you like. I’ll answer it on my laptop. 11:09 PM

Tonight I bought almost 10 beers for people, had a basket of sweet potato fries (best in the city IMHO), a killer gyro, and a Meat splash (small meatball sub). After a generous tip, my total was $18. HOW AWESOME IS THAT!?

Sure you might get herpes by using the bathroom. Sure it’s dark and kinda hard to see if the tables are clean. Sure the live music is not my thing, and sure it’s full of hipsters.

On the plus side, the food is fantastic (it’s a secret menu, you need to ask, and it seems that they only have one to go around), the atmosphere is unique, you’re free to write on the walls, and hipsters are courageous people. You need to be when you decide to all wear the same clothes.

Every person in the place looks like this

This image is not mine. I'm a criminal.

I know very little details about what these bills are all about, but I’ll tell you what I think is the jist of it. This pic that I used for this post came from a site that I found while Googling “sopa pipa”.

Even though I gave credit to the source, if there is a perceived violation of the content creator’s IP (intellectual property) by someone (or anyone I think), then the full force and weight of the federal government will come down on my hosting provider and make them close brumblog.com. Without any way for me to correct the issue or contest the accusation.

What’s worse is if the site that I just linked above links to something that contains copyrighted materials (which is perceived by someone as a violation) they will be taken down too. Then this site will be taken down as well for linking to them.

Pull on one thread and the whole thing comes apart.

Check out this video for a summary. Btw, this video isn’t mine either. I deserve to be shutdown.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

I don’t vote in primaries (because I refuse to pick a party, and in Ohio that means that you can only vote on a non-partisan ballot, e.g., issues only) and I rarely vote for republicans. I find myself on realclearpolitics.com at least once every few days to see how the polls are running. I get a real kick out of Mitt Romney doing well.

It’s not because I like Mitt. I just love to hear of conservative pundits and personalities hate the fact that he’s going to be the nominee. I love that Ron Paul is probably not going to give up and be a republican Ralph Nader, taking away votes. I love that when Gingrich and Perry open their mouths, they tend to make things worse. I love that Santorum is still in the race letting his freak flag fly. I kind of miss Bachman, and Cain.

I think that Mitt will be candidate, and that he’ll lose to Obama. It seems like a win win situation for democrats. If Mitt is the guy, a subset of republican voters won’t vote for him because he’s not conservative enough, or because he’s Mormon, or because his not a person you can have a beer with. All dumb reasons.

If Mitt is not the guy, and say Santorum is the candidate, oh man…what a circus that would be.

Define: schadenfreude – Noun. Pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune. Of course it could all go sideways and then my enjoyment is now my nightmare. We’ll see what the next 10 months will bring.

Super bright, modular, and controllable.

Check out what’s coming in the mail in a few days! These are modular LED aquarium lights from AquariumIllumination.

They are easy to install (we hope), give great light for the fish and coral in the tank, are modular (easy to add more), controllable, and best of all…pull only 130 watts. Our current setup for lighting is 4 VHO bulbs at 120 watts a piece. A piece people! We’re going from 480 watts, to 130. I know that it doesn’t sound like a lot, but it adds up.

The wife wanted to get these because it will provide better lighting for the corals, and also allow us to setup more realistic sunrise/sunset cycles. These will even simulate lunar cycles. I wanted to get it for the power savings.

Oh, and I also wanted it so that I can play with the thunderstorm simulations.

The best damn remote $50 can buy

People have told me that the Logitech remotes are one of the best remotes on the market. I thought, “I spent over $100 on an old Sony universal remote, and I’ll never spend money on a remote ever again.”

What a fool I was.

I got the Logitech 650 for Amazon for about $50. The reviews were very good, however, the mentioned that setup was a pain. They were right. I spent a few hours playing with the config and changing button layouts. When I was all done, I had the best remote for me.

It controls everything that I have, flawlessly. Switching between inputs is a breeze. If you want it to do something, it’s just a matter of configuration. I’ve run out of positive things to say.

I’m not very creative. Great remote. Really…really…great.