Another Damn Installment of Thad Has a Cold

2013-03-01, 8:47 pm
Categories: Stream of Consciousness

Let's see -- what-all meds did I take when I got out of bed this morning?

Cough syrup, two inhalers, nose spray, Mucinex, and a multivitamin. Plus a cup of coffee and, once I had a breakfast of oatmeal in me, ibuprofen too. Seems like I'm forgetting something; there was a lot there.

My fiancée appears to have caught what I have. She went to urgent care and they told her it was allergies, which I'm pretty sure it isn't seeing as she's got the same symptoms I've had all week.

She's not coughing yet, though. I just started coughing really badly a day or two ago. Barely slept last night. Going to take an inhaler at bedtime tonight; probably won't be able to sleep that way, either, but better to lose sleep because I'm amped up on albuterol than because I can't stop coughing.

Still improving, and hopefully we'll both be fine by next weekend. But man there's so much to do and I've lost a whole week to this mess.

Improving

2013-02-28, 6:14 pm
Categories: Announcements, Stream of Consciousness

Better every day. Throat's still sore, but I'm starting to get my energy and balance back.

Cough's worse, though, and neither cough syrup nor inhaler are doing much good. As such I still don't want to engage in any kind of physical exertion -- hell, it's so bad I don't even want to drive right now, for fear of having a coughing fit and running off the damn road.

Haven't even made it downtown for comics. I've managed to get this far without finding out who dies in Batman Inc #8 and am hoping my luck holds.

At least I'm feeling good enough to contact people about the party before the wedding next week. Just not quite good enough to actually clean my house up so I can have people in it.

Doctor Who: Kinda

2013-02-27, 2:18 pm
Categories: Stream of Consciousness, TV

Still pretty out of it with a head cold, so here's another old Who review. Originally posted Brontoforumus, 2009-09-07.

Kinda (the first syllable is pronounced like "kin") is a Fifth Doctor serial. I checked it out because I read on Tardis Wikia that it's one of Moffat's two favorite serials. After watching it, I don't quite share his enthusiasm, but I understand why he likes it.

The high concept is Dr. Strangelove set in the Garden of Eden. The Doctor lands on an unspoiled planet with apparently-primitive natives, and finds a military expedition sent to survey it. The second-in-command of the crew goes crazy, takes over, and decides he's going to blow up the world, while an evil entity enters the world through Teagan's dreams and launches an attack to force his hand.

The highlight is that dreaming sequence. It's some Lewis Carroll fever-dream shit, and precisely the kind of thing you'd expect from a Moffat episode. The other Moffat-y bits are the sense of confinement, of an oncoming and implacable enemy, and of a crew going crazy, as well as characters who speak in riddles. And lots of iconic imagery.

In the end, my main problem with Kinda is that I just don't like the Fifth Doctor very much. He's got this air of helplessness and incompetence about him. During several of the sequences where he's at Hindle's mercy, I found myself thinking, "#3 would have just judo-chopped the motherfucker."

The last episode of the serial has the most straightforward story, and suffers from it. The final confrontations with the antagonists are somewhat anticlimactic. The ending does redeem itself a bit by being one of those nice oldschool short-and-sweet Who goodbye scenes that is utterly unheard of in the RTD era.

Ultimately, there are some great damn ideas in Kinda, and it's a perfectly solid serial, but I certainly wouldn't call it one of the best. Worth a rental if you're still getting discs from Netflix, but it's not available for streaming and I wouldn't pay the $20 Amazon is charging for it.

Struck Down!

2013-02-26, 12:00 pm
Categories: Announcements, Stream of Consciousness

I seem to have caught something. Sore throat, cough, aches and a general lack of energy.

I guess it's better I get it now than a week from now; I've got time to rest up and take my vitamins and hopefully beat it back well in advance of my pending nuptials.

But man it is interfering with any tasks more complex than "send people E-Mail to let them know when to be here".

I still need to buy a bowtie.

Downtime

2013-02-25, 12:48 pm
Categories: Announcements, Stream of Consciousness, Tech, Work

So the site didn't resolve for a good chunk of yesterday. That's down to a problem with the hosting provider; both its nameservers were down. That's a fucked-up day; I sure am glad I don't work there anymore.

I should probably back this thing up more often, just in case. I write up all my posts in a text editor anyway, and could restore them by simple copy-paste if ever needed, but it would take awhile.

Running the backend of the hosting company (which also offers rent-an-admin services, and which at the time was also a DSL and dialup ISP) is the toughest job I've ever had -- and the worst-paying, which is why I finally left; I'd have been happy to take a high-pressure job or a low-paying one, but not both at the same time. I've certainly got my share of bad memories of being called in on a Sunday due to a network meltdown -- actually, again, it was the third or fourth consecutive time that happened on a Sunday when my boss had promised to cover it and said it was okay for me to take a 25-mile trip to Tempe that I decided I couldn't keep doing it.

That boss is long gone, though, and another of my old bosses is back in charge. I'm glad he's got things in hand but I sure don't envy him -- and keep in mind, that's coming from a guy who's been unemployed for the past four months.