Monday, September 10, 2012
Suddenlink
Wow. Spent hours on the phone today trying to get thru to Suddenlink, our cable supplier. Bad technical connections, bad English, repeated commercials while waiting, and ten or twenty more wrong/bad things. Monopolies are a wonderful thing, eh? Horrible horrible services.
Reason for the call, to disconnect my “high speed” internet service; I’ve tried the “better” package from NATCO, the phone company, and it does seems better...at least until fiber gets here..in a couple of years for sure.
Neither company that provides “fast” service will guarantee the data rate. NATCO tires to sell me a faster rate than 8MB/sec; but I already have 8MB/sec and rarely, if ever, get close to it. Long conversations with smart NATCO engineers help me understand, but even with repeated “speed tests”, it seems I’ll never get there...
The reason that this is an issue is that when downloading Really Large Digital Movies, at 1080p resolution, for rental, it can take hours - really - from the moment you say - “Rent It” until you can watch the movie. So a “most always” above 2MBs, say, makes that go away and waits are reduced to mere seconds/minutes. We’ll see. WiFi usage does not slow anything down, I’m told, but Concrete Walls do, so Upstairs connections are still intermittent.
Sunday, September 09, 2012
Shots and Weight
Last January, I had developed leg cramps that woke me up in the night. I visited our local Nurse who sent me to an endrochronologist in Springfield, about 2 hours away. He looked at my glucose blood numbers (over 400) and, when I eschewed oral medication (metaformin?) - he proscribed an insulin therapy. So, (most) every day since then I’ve measured my glucose levels and taken four count ‘em four shots of insulin. One larger slower acting kind, and before meals, a lower dose of faster acting stuff. Numbers dropped dramatically - more than in half; legs cramps eased a bit; other body cramps continued sporadically. But ohbytheway...My weight increased by more than 25 lbs...”normal” when insulin is taken, I’m told. Two pants sizes up later, after seven months, I am tryling to lose weight on a near-total veg diet (See Eat and Live by Dr. XXXX, featured on the local PBS outlet), and to cut down on the insulin. Groan. Glucose number creeping up, weight creeping down; there seems to be no happy medium way to do this.
Chili Dogs
Well lookey here...
The Arkansas State Chili cook-off was here last Saturday, and this year, dogs were allowed paid admission. No sight can warm the heart like Little Baby licking chili remnants from a plastic tasting cup.
My feelings for dogs are similar to those of the Islamists and Chinese/Orientals..(Wait a minute, that’s billions of folks..what else might they know better than us?) None of the cooks here seem daring enough to go to the next step - serving “fruit fox” (wink wink) chili, but soon enough. I think that one of Korean Dear Leader Kim’s accomplishments (bucket list is not used in Korea for obvious reasons) was winning the All-Asian Fruit Fox Chili cook off for many consecutive years. Poodle Noodle? KimChihuahua? His recipes and breed choices remain State Secrets.
Tips and tits...
The New Owners of the Local Restaurant have decided folks who visit their Bar prefer gazing at young Large Cleavage, rather than getting a proper drink made correctly. They’ve hired such talent and dropped the Real NYC bartender. We’ve all traded Real Drinks for Novices with BigOnes. Sad.
Rumor has it “Exercise Poles” are being installed for Phase Two. Big Dreamers They, Phase Three involves local police corruption, removal of lights in the parking lot, and a free expression/enterprise zone. Slippery Slope takes on a new ominous meaning.
(Remember Topless Bars back in the day? I have fond recollections of living single in California then...and now in my quiet retirement, a great 70’s nostalgiic tradition seems to be returning...)
MaMoo’s Sayings
All four of we Walsh Kids remember fondly the “Words of MaMoo” our long-departed sainted mother. We end up rediscovering how true they are. Among them:
I’m glad I’m not living now.
Good is good
You Can’t tell Anybody Anything
And the departing admonition - Watch Out For Drunks.
