Monthly Archives: May 2005

I haven’t seen Star Wars yet, as my friends aren’t cool enough to want to see it with me at midnight this morning (I would have taken today off work), and I’m not cool enough to be willing to bike out to the theater myself (7 miles) in the middle of the night.

I’ll probably get to see it this weekend.

I went to the Allergist this morning. To test food allergies they have to perform a blood test, and I won’t get the reuslts back for 3 weeks. :/

I don’t know whether they are testing things other than various food allergies – they asked me about my hay fever and the various pets I have and may be testing that stuff too, even though those allergies only bother me minimally and only for a few weeks a year at that.

I thought the hardest bit would be getting to the allergist, but it wasn’t nearly as hard as I imagined. The three mile bike ride went rather quickly, the hills weren’t as bad as I had feared, and after finally finding a street number and realizing that the even numbers were on the other side of the street, I found the place okay. Then there was a lot of paperwork (Why do they always want your social security number? Even better, why am I always too much of a wimp to simply leave that question blank?) and waiting, followed by a little bit of talking to the doctor, and a long time of trying to actually give blood. I inherited my dad’s veins… they refuse to give blood on demand, instead hiding deeper than they should or collapsing entirely.

Anyway, yeah. Now I just wait for the results and try not to eat anything that kills me until then. The doctor told me that even if the results come back negative, I still may be having other, non-allergic reactions so should avoid foods that bother me anyway. We’ll see…

What obsolete skill are you? (from Beth)

You are ‘growing one’s own food’. You are guided by two words: ‘Live simply.’ You value quality over quantity in most things, and you have little use for the materialism and consumerism of modern culture. You know the value of hard work and try to be self-sufficient as much as possible, and what you do you do well. Unfortunately, no man is an island, and you cannot do everything yourself. Your puritanical work ethic makes makes people think that you are weird, and not much fun. Your problem is that growing one’s own food has been obsolete for a long time.

‘Puritanical work ethic’… yeah… *snort*

The Understand Stuff Around You Test (from Azrael)

Excellent!
You are 84% smarty pants!

Great job! You clearly know what’s going on in the world around you. All those times you paid attention in class are showing dividends, or maybe you’re just an inquisitive person. Either way, you rock.

(I scored higher than 77% on Knowledge) This is ironic when considered in conjunction with…

The Academically Hardcore Test (from Azrael)

Softcore
You scored 14 gunnerness!

You’re a laid back student. This doesn’t mean that you don’t care about school, but you don’t let yourself become consumed with a test or assignment, and a bad test score won’t get you down. You wonder if those who work harder are actually happy with their lives or are just trying to please someone else in their lives. There are better ways to spend your time than stressing out over school. It’s important to have a life outside of class. After all, that’s where the real education is to be had.

(I scored higher than 0% on gunnerness, whatever that is)

I forgot to do this on Friday, so I’m doing it now, a bit late.

Biking has been going well, I guess. I feel like I’m improving again, after ingesting more protein for the past week (I’ve decided to ignore the .5 hours of discomfort [wherein my lips swell to Steven Tyler proportions] I get after eating my proteinaceous cereal with soy milk in the morning, as it doesn’t seem likely to kill me and I think I get more benefits than annoyance out of it. Besides, I’m seeing an allergist on Wednesday [Finally!]).

I biked up Freese Rd for the first time yesterday, and the hill didn’t make my legs noticeably tired, though it did make me sound like an asthmatic lungfish for a while there.

This is highly recommended! (From Geekpress)

“Strong with the farm, he is. But our last hope- Cuke is not, there is another… you! When the market you visit, you can keep your family and your planet safe from the dark side by choosing organic!”

“May the farm be with you, always!”

This is so right up my alley (see related rant).

c2 (happicow) finally returned the netflix discs he’s had out for a few months, so 3 of mine finally came in, two of which I watched last night.

The first one was The Buddy Holly Story. Buddy Holly rocks, and is now of of my favorite musicians, but I wasn’t familiar with his music (at least not as his music) until recently, when I saw the science fiction book Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede recommended somewhere and decided to give it a go. The book was good enough to pique my interest, so I bought a CD, which I dug. When I saw this movie mentioned somewhere else, I added it to my netflix queue. The movie itself was really enjoyable, thought somehow I doubt its accuracy :)

The second disc was Stacy, a Japanese cult horror film about schoolgirl zombies. I saw this recommended somewhere, but I added it to the netflix queue so long ago I can’t recall where. I watched this with Beth and Marty, the former of whom didn’t like it and the latter didn’t like it enough to fall asleep. I liked it, though that’s probably not to surprising to anyone familiar with my penchants for both zombies and anime (not that this movie is anime, but it might as well be). This movie had the all-to-common (IMHO) japanese-media characteristic of wanting really badly to made some point, but of obfuscating it so badly that no one I know can figure out what that point could possibly be (I’m used to this by now, of course). I read on the Internet somewhere that it is a commentary on the objectification of women, but I think that’s stretching it a bit. Anyway, this movie had it’s ups and downs, I particularly liked the references to George Romero and Bruce Campbell, but was (as usual) lost by the Japanese obsession with pairing middle aged men with teenage schoolgirls (I wonder if such pairings are even illegal [or uncommon] in Japan- their portrayal is so widespread…). Anyway, there’s probably a slim percentage of the population who would dig this movie (and not even for pedophilic or necrophilic reasons), so if you’re one of them (as am I), check it out. You may want to google some real reviews first, though :)

The third disc I recieved (but haven’t watched yet) is Firefly disc 1, which I want to watch before seeing Serenity. It’s likely that anyone reading this blog is already familiar with all of this stuff, so I think I’ll end this post here :)

Yesterday I bought a protein drink at GreenStar. But this wasn’t just any protein drink- it was the tastiest drink I’ve had in just about as long as I can remember- a mixture of vanilla chai, green tea, and good- Bolthouse Farms’ Perfectly Protein.

Unfortunately, after finding a drink I so thoroughly enjoyed, it looks like I’m allergic to something in it. Just a short time after drinking a bunch of this stuff, I started to have what I think was an alergic reaction. My throat didn’t swell up exactly, but something under it did, a little, and my stomach started to hurt. By the time the yummy frittatas we were having for dinner were done cooking, I wasn’t in the mood for eating anything anymore. My stomach got worse, and soon my throat started to hurt and I got all congested. I went to sleep for a while, and when I woke up my stomach no longer hurt. This morning I was no longer sore, congested or sneezy.

I think I’m going to have to do some more controlled experiments before I come to any (more) conclusions…

I also think I should go to an allergist (but I’ve been saying this for years).

Yesterday was the IFSA meetup, and to get there I biked down to the commons for the first time. It wasn’t too bad a ride down, really- it took me 20 minutes, and most of that was braking down the big hills. It was a really nice day, so about umpteen gajillion people also thought it would be a good idea to bike down there, hence it was a bit crowded. Ironically, I was still able to meet up with Marty, who had biked down a few hours earlier, just by chance.

Despite the crowdedness, when I popped over to Comics for Collectors for Free Comic Book Day, the place was no more busy than normal. Philistines!

About the time the meeting (which had a rather small turnout, probably on account of the nice weather) was supposed to start my stomach started aching. Again. For the past week my stomach has been aching, seemingly randomly, on and off (and within the past few days all-over itchiness has also started, randomly- so I’ve been more uncomfortable than not, recently). So for the first half of the meeting I was pretty quiet and miserable, which the others noticed. When I told them what was up, they suggested it may be a reaction to the hair dye (I redyed it shortly before the achy/itchiness started happening), which is entirely possible (though Beth suggested another possibility, which I will mention later). Anyway, after a half hour or so I got to feeling better so I was able to sit back and enjoy the debates :)

After about half of the meeting disbanded, the rest of us went over to Gino’s for pizza. Once we were done, Mitch kindly offered me and my bike a ride back home (on account of my earlier stomach achiness), but as there were three bikes that needed transferring (Mitch‘s, Marty‘s, and mine) and two slots on his bike rack I declined. At that point happicow offered my money to buy a hitch-mount bike rack for his jeep so all three bikes could get up the hill. So we tried to go to the various bike shoppes in the commons only to have no love (one store only had clip-on type racks, which I don’t trust at all, and the other store was closed). So we gave up on that venture and Marty and I decided to bike up the hill.

We attempted to bike up University Ave, which had been suggested to be easier/possible on account of it going diagonally up the mountain instead of straight up. Marty didn’t seem to have any trouble, but I had to stop and walk my bike once we got to the hills on campus, which are slightly steeper (I had already spent myself on the easier bit down below). Not only that, but I also had to stop enitrely to rest for a few minutes at a time to allow my legs to stop hurting on occassion. Marty took all of my out-of-shapeness in good humor and waited around with me. Eventually we made it back over to East Ave, which is about as high as the mountain gets in that area and rested yet again (sitting down this time) so I could let the strange and unfamiliar pain I had developed in my back go away. After a few minutes of that, and enjoying the general niceness of the weather we biked the rest of the way back. Total time: 36 minutes. Average speed: 6.6 mph :(

After getting home I was surprised to see my Nashbar order had arrived, so I spent the rest of the night struggling to attach everything to my bike (the front fender could only affix to one side of the frame, as my frame only has holes to attach it on the one side; and my rack ended up a bit slanty, but it’s as good as I can get it, I think).

At some point Marty told Beth about my achy/itchiness, and she looked up some nutrient deficiency that I think they decided I have wherein the subject doesn’t get enough protein and niacin, gets stomach cramps, itchy flaky skin, dementia, other things, and eventually dies. As a vegetarian, I have the unfortunate situation of not liking any vegetarian sources of protein save eggs, so this is entirely possible. Marty told me that if I want to be a vegetarian, maybe I should start eating meat :(

I’m gonna try not to do that. I’ll try to eat more beans and cheeses instead, and I’ll buy vegetarian multi-vitamins (the Centrum I have is not vegetarian, which I found out after taking it for the past few days :/) today at GreenStar. Unfortunately one of the best vegetarian sources of most nutrients seems to be nuts, which I am allergic to.

A protein deficiency would explain a lot- like why I don’t seem to be getting much stronger or gaining any endurance (really) despite biking so consistantly for the past few months… Even if I don’t have one now, with the junk I eat (e.g., yesterday I had: 2 eggs, 2 pcs. toast, 2 slices pizza; and that was a particulary healthy day, usually I just eat pasta) I’m bound to get some deficiency.

I think I’m gonna do this every week, just ‘cuz.

Don’t laugh when I forget next week.

I think it would be really nice for this to be a scatterplot with a single straight line instead of a line graph so that I can get a more useful show of overall (dis)improvement. Unfortunately, I can’t find any simple way to do it using just GD::Graph and at the moment I’m way too lazy to code up something to do it myself.