soapbox

Friday was an interesting day. I stop popping Motrin for a little while (It’s really impressive though how ibuprofen and acetaminophen can have such different actions. Acetaminophen does wonders for me on the rare occasions that I get headaches and ibuprofen does an amazing job on bone/muscle pain. However, the other combination doesn’t seem to be nearly as effective.) and head to the oral surgeon. He does a panoramic x-ray and looks in my mouth. “Yup, I can see why that tooth is hurting.” Shows me the x-ray, “If you had just a couple more millimeters to your jaw, those bottom wisdom teeth would fit. But see how they tilt forward? Because of that, you can’t clean behind them and you’re going to run into decay problems. It’s not a big problem, but we don’t want the decay to spread to the teeth you need to keep.”

That gets followed by “When do you want to take them all out?”

My answer was “not today” and we compromised on doing the bottom ones in the spring and the hurty one now. Tooth extraction is actually kind of impressive, at least in cases where the tooth has successfully erupted. It’s just two shots of novocaine, open wide, a little bit of torquing and prying with pliers, and you’re done. I got a prescription for some serious painkillers, but ended up only taking more Motrin. Actually, a smaller dose of Motrin than I was taking for the hurting tooth.

I got a chance to check out my tooth too. By the time your teeth actually start hurting, they’re seriously fucked up. It was actually kind of impressive, I was having trouble with food getting stuck between my teeth and it’s because the wisdom tooth had a huge fucking hole in it.

So yeah, spring break fun getting out the bottom two. They want to do sedation for that though, and I’m frankly more worried about the anesthetic than I am the extraction. I should look back a year in the blog, I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before.

A British saying identifies the difference between two popular sports thus: “Football (soccer) is a gentleman’s sport played by hooligans, while rugby is a hooligan’s sport played by gentlemen.”

Certainly there are exceptions, but if you haven’t been watching Sportscenter the past week, then check this out.

What’s really impressive (and slightly disturbing) is that none of the major offenses even drew a card – she ended up with just one yellow for a “minor” trip.

I don’t know that there’s much more to say about it than that.. The 1918 flu was also also a H1N1 strain and predominantly killed people our age by making our immune systems overwork themselves. Young kids, old people, and people with weak immune systems all made it through. The healthy young adults were the ones who died.

The good news though is that this isn’t a H5N1 avian flu. Only a few people have ever been infected with it but the fatality rate is between 60 and 100%.

Two sports predictions:

First, that in the next 10-20 years, the NFL will be dramatically different from the game/institution that we know today, due to (long-overdue) attention to brain trauma. Concussions will be viewed the way we now view asbestos, where the blithe and dangerous attitude of times gone by will be unfathomable.

Secondly, that Tim Donaghy will eventually be viewed in the same light as Jose Canseco, and that’s meant very complimentarily. Canseco was once a ‘roided-up crackpot who spouted off random and crazy accusations but in the intervening decade or two has been proving correct on pretty much all counts. As for Donaghy, I present you this:

I worked a Knicks game in Madison Square Garden with him on February 26, 2007. New York shot an astounding 39 free throws that night to Miami’s paltry eight. It seemed like Stafford was working for the Knicks, calling fouls on Miami like crazy. Isiah Thomas was coaching the Knicks, and after New York’s four-point victory, a guy from the Knicks came to our locker room looking for Stafford, who was in the shower. He told us that Thomas sent him to retrieve Stafford’s home address; apparently, Stafford had asked the coach before the game for some autographed sneakers and jerseys for his kids. Suddenly, it all made sense.

Okay, no big deal, a ref gave away one game in exchange for some stuff from a Hall-of-Famer, right? Check this out:

In the pregame meeting prior to Game 6, the league office sent down word that certain calls-calls that would have benefitted the Lakers — were being missed by the referees. This was the type of not-so-subtle information that I and other referees were left to interpret. After receiving the dispatch, Bavetta openly talked about the fact that the league wanted a Game 7.

“If we give the benefit of the calls to the team that’s down in the series, nobody’s going to complain. The series will be even at three apiece, and then the better team can win Game 7,” Bavetta stated.

I mean, wow. Not even the Godfather himself (NBA Commish David Stern) will be able to cover this up, even if he sues both Amazon.com and Random House.

P.S. I have spent the last couple hours trying to figure out whether this is an april fools prank or not, given deadspin’s spotty history. But I think this is legit, it just makes too much sense.

A couple older relatives and friends of mine recently got burned by a spam/malware/phishing issue that traces back to desktopdate d0t net. Does anybody have any experience/knowledge of this?

I’ve found this but at least one of the people involved claims to have not clicked on the email, but still had many invites issued on their behalf to the contents of their address book.

I got this message in an email today:

Somehow in one of the recent re-builds I’ve lostmy copyof “Graphic Converter”. Can anyone remind mehow to get another copy for my Mac? Thanks, XXX

I’m having a really hard time not sending an email back saying “try googling GraphicCoverter”.

Sadly though, the answer (which I knew instantly) is www.lemkesoft.com

In addition to the overuse/misuse of antibiotics and Nathaniel’s suggestion about stocking up on said items, here’s another doomsday scenario to keep you up at night: Ug99

One consequence of the farce that is the current US Agricultural “plan” is the horrible dependence on pesticides combined with the use of hyper-genetically-modified grains. Monsanto has done a great job of marketing and as long as no foreign plagues are introduced, we’re all good – but between global warming and what stem rust, there’s reason to worry.

“A significant humanitarian crisis is inevitable,” said Rick Ward, the coordinator of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

The solution is to develop new wheat varieties that are immune to Ug99. That’s much easier said than done.

After several years of feverish work, scientists have identified a mere half-dozen genes that are immediately useful for protecting wheat from Ug99. Incorporating them into crops using conventional breeding techniques is a nine- to 12-year process that has only just begun. And that process will have to be repeated for each of the thousands of wheat varieties that is specially adapted to a particular region and climate.

“All the seed needs to change in the next few years,” said Ronnie Coffman, a plant breeder who heads the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project. “It’s really an enormous undertaking.”