A heapin' helpin' of miscellaneous crap.
For the past few days, I’ve had some mystery malaise. Fatigue, a weird lack of equilibrium, raw but dry sinuses, headaches, pressure behind the eyes, a smidgen of sore throat. Of course, me being me, I looked up the symptom list of Swine Flu. Doesn’t sound like what I have. Finally today everything clicked together, and I realized it’s totally a sinus infection. I’ve had them before, and it’s always the same — dry but achy sinuses, headache, and the feeling that something’s pushing on my eyeballs from the inside. I toodled over to my doctor’s office (which is in the parking lot of my workplace, handy handy) and had a nice young man peer up my nostrils. He sent me away with amoxicillin and a nasal spray. Good times!
I’m currently reading Gary Taubes’ Good Calories, Bad Calories — it’s a massive book, and very dense, but it’s full of a ton of amazing information about how a few key players turned the US government toward a recommended diet that’s proven to make people fatter and give them diabetes and heart disease. And now that the government is pot-committed to what they’ve pushed for 30 years, there’s little chance to get people on an actual healthy diet, full of beneficial saturated fats and low on fattening sugars. My next book, sitting here on my desk, is Lierre Keith’s The Vegetarian Myth, where the former 20-year vegan tells us all about how agriculture not only is destroying the earth, but also kills a vast number of living creatures. Good times!
I’m watching lots of TV lately, and the pile is about to get bigger. V starts in a couple of weeks, as does the miniseries remake of The Prisoner. One of my regular shows right now is Castle, a kind of fun-and-frolic police procedural. You wouldn’t think those things would go together, but Nathan Fillion makes it work. On this Monday’s episode, the Halloween ep, it looks like he’ll be wearing a captain Mal Reynolds costume. Classic. One thing I love about this show is that part of it is the family dynamic back in the lead character’s home, and I actually don’t hate the lead’s family. So often, they’re given a sibling or child (the Bionic Woman remake, for example) and the home-life stuff is so gratingly awful that I lose the love for the show. For some reason, the daughter and mother on Castle are not just tolerable, they’re great.
Reality TV continues on — DwtS, ANTM, SYTYCD; all of the classics that are acronymable. This week’s Survivor was great, except I thought everyone should have been given the pizza at the end. The Amazing Race no longer has my favorite team (Justin & Zev), but they also don’t have anyone for me to actively hate anymore, now that the Boston lawyers are gone. Maybe someone else will stand out this week as someone to loathe. Project Runway is decent this season, but nobody’s really knocking my socks off with their designs. I do like Irina’s negative attitude and snarky comments about her fellow contestants, but she’s hardly a Santino or Wendy Pepper-grade villain.
My uncle Dave has been seeing misc doctors for his sinus problems for a while now and last week had a new one w/ a new idea: “balloon sinuplasty”
Supposed to open up his nasal passages without the ordeal of traditional sinus surgery. No idea what the deal is as far as what conditions it works for but it was a new one on me as far as sinus troubles go.
Crazy, man!
peace
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Saw V on hulu this weekend and … I like it. It seems much more sinister than I remember the 1983 series being. I have hopes we’d see the rest of the Firefly actors.
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Two cures for The Missy:
* Campbell’s Soup Mix, Noodle Soup with Real Chicken Broth
* Roasted Habaneros would be ideal, but barring that…
* El Yucateco Green Salsa Picante de Chile Habanero Hot Sauce
* Lemon
Mister Moe’s Industrial Strength Jack-hammer Sinus cure:
* Boiling water
* rock salt
* Vicks VapoSteam menthol Liquid Steam Inhalant
* Humco brand Benzoin Tincture
Benzoin stains your pots (stains can be removed with alcohol). Use some kind of cheap throw-away plastic pot.
This is the mother of all sinus headache cures. Bad side effects – your sinuses will finally flow freely with mucus, and it will all run down the back of your throat – gross. But all sinus pressure will be relieved. Vigorous activity will keep your sinuses flowing very nicely. If you must lie down use ice packs on the front and back of your head to keep your sinuses open as you sleep.
Boil up a bunch of water, pour the ingredients in liberally. Breath in the steam. It is unrelenting – it will jackhammer open all of your sinuses, and sooth all those mucus membranes, and let the mucus flow nicely.
My recipe is so powerful, it will continue to work 20 minutes after you stop inhaling.
Never use Sudafed, because instead of reducing the swelling of the mucus linings of the sinuses, it will merely dry them out. And if they dry up and close with a big mass of mucus trapped behind, you are in for a horrible horrible headache.
Cheers, and enjoy the lack of achy sinus pains!
http://manuelmoeg.blogspot.com/2009/11/chicken-soup-w-el-yucateco-green-salsa.html
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missy Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Wow! That all sounds … uncomfortable.
Fortunately, my sinuses are great. It was a sinus infection, and amoxicillin knocked it right out. There was no stuffiness and very little snot; just the feeling of a big inflamed open space inside my head.
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Wait…you eat meat because a vegetarian diet kills animals? Huh? I can understand taking issue with the overly-processed “meat substitutes” because really, fake bacon and eggs isn’t doing you or the planet any good, or with the massive amounts of oil required to grow soy…
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missy Reply:
November 12th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
I eat meat for the health reasons, not because of the shortcomings of vegetarianism. I just found it a fascinating (if a bit overly emotional) book. Although I have to agree that both agriculture and factory farming are terrible for the planet. In a perfect world, I’d eat grass-fed beef and free-range poultry, and all of the land that’s being used for corn and wheat would be turned back to pasture.
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