Where I'll be until July 14th

We'll be in Emerald Isle, NC, for a long overdue week of vacation. Happy Independence Day, and I'll see you when we get back!

Googling for Symptoms

Yeah, we've all done it. Pop your symptoms in the Google search bar and see what turns up. Typically I will mistakenly conclude that I have cancer. Then the symptoms will subside and I'll forget about it, long before a doctor gets involved.

But I have a message for the person who stumbled upon my blog today via the Google search "lower back, intestinal, and taint pain" -- that is one unfortunate combination. I'm so sorry. You should probably go to the doctor.

Incidentally, I don't know whether to laugh or cry that my post about an acquaintance's terrible inflammation is the first result under a Google search for "taint rash."

The Perils of the Search-Replace Function

I saw this post on Mary Ann Akers' "Behind the Scenes" blog on washingtonpost.com, and wanted to share it with my small cadre of faithful readers. It reminds me of a time a friend accepted an alternate proper name spelling suggested by spellcheck, causing her to send an email to dozens of high-level managers that referred to a colleague as Ms. Jerk. Only this one is much more appalling:

The American Family Association obviously didn't foresee the problems that might arise with its strict policy to always replace the word "gay" with "homosexual" on the Web site of its Christian news outlet, OneNewsNow. The group's automated system for changing the forbidden word wound up publishing a story about a world-class sprinter named "Tyson Homosexual" who qualified this week for the Beijing Olympics.

The problem: Tyson's real last name is Gay. Therefore, OneNewsNow's reliable software changed the Associated Press story about Tyson Gay's amazing Olympic qualifying trial to read this way:

Tyson Homosexual was a blur in blue, sprinting 100 meters faster than anyone ever has.

His time of 9.68 seconds at the U.S. Olympic trials Sunday doesn't count as a world record, because it was run with the help of a too-strong tailwind. Here's what does matter: Homosexual qualified for his first Summer Games team and served notice he's certainly someone to watch in Beijing.

"It means a lot to me," the 25-year-old Homosexual said. "I'm glad my body could do it, because now I know I have it in me."

More on Mary Ann's blog. Even more is available (including a play-by-play of the AFA's bumbling attempts to fix the problem) on the gay rights site that caught the mistake, goodasyou.org.

My final thought, now that I've stopped giggling, is this: the word gay has several uses. It is obviously a first and last name. It is a place name -- Gay Head, Massachusetts, comes to mind. It is the name of a historically significant WWII airplane, the Enola Gay. I'm sure there are plenty more. It boggles my mind that the the AFA site approved an automated process that wipes out a word from the english language, replacing it wholesale with a word that only sometimes works as a synonym.

You really just can't replace human reasoning with an automated process.

When Your Herbal Medicine Tastes Like Ass

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to try an herbal treatment suggested by my acupuncturist. After discussing the treatment with her, I received my herbal "prescription" in the mail -- there were two types of herbs, one for the first half of my cycle and one for the second. Each daily dose came in a plastic vacuum package, which I warmed in a bowl of hot water before cutting into the pack and pouring it into a mug.

The first batch of herbs didn't taste great, but it was drinkable. There was a somewhat pleasant aftertaste that was slightly reminiscent of anise or licorice.

The second batch of herbs has been hateful. Just hateful. I can barely choke down each dose, and the aftertaste must be what sewer water tastes like. Actually, the most accurate way of describing it is to say it tastes old and gray and rotten.

Tonight is the first night I've finished the dosage, versus pouring some of it down the drain in disgust. I succeeded this time by trying not to smell the concoction, gulping it quickly down (it's about six gulps), and by eating a square of dark chocolate as a chaser. So that technique is my tip to you, should you find yourself drinking gray-tasting herbal medicine.

I'm not sure if this stuff will help. I do think it can't hurt. My acupuncturist also recommended a lot of seemingly random diet changes that don't have any basis in Western science. This is all part of "traditional Chinese medicine" (TCM). The thing is, the reason I believe in acupuncture is that there are Western studies that show the benefits. The other TCM stuff, including the diet, not so much. The studies I could find discounted it. And I can't say I'm surprised -- what diet that allows cooked spinach but bans raw spinach could possibly be based on science? So I have tried to improve my diet, but haven't really stuck to the TCM diet suggestions.

In the meantime, I continue to be happy to be off the Western fertility meds. I'm not sure I'll go back.

Shot Fired

This morning, I was walking Wendy a half-block from our townhouse when a loud boom rang out. Wendy, a retired hunting dog, recognized the sound immediately. So did I, from my skeet and trap days -- someone had shot a shotgun, and it was close.

Wendy and I started running for our house, picking up speed I didn't know she was capable of in her old age. When we got inside, I took off her leash and noticed her legs were shaking. Then I noticed mine were too.

I called 911. When the police arrived, I told the policewoman what I knew, which was not much. "Do any of the neighbors have guns?" she asked. I told her that a young Iraq vet, his wife/girlfriend, and friend rent the end townhouse two down from ours, where the blast seemed to emanate from. From the cars out front, it appeared that only the vet was home. We knew it was his by the bronze star license plate.

The police canvassed the neighborhood a bit and confirmed that there'd been a boom. Nobody else had called 911. The police knocked on the door of the house at the end, but nobody answered. It's now 14 hours later and I still don't know what happened. The vet's truck sat in its space all day. (I worked from home today.) Nobody else ever came home to that house after work, and no lights are on right now.

Maybe someone was just shooting a snake in one of the tiny backyards. Virginia's a red state, after all.

Hopefully, it was something like that.

Eating My Shoe

On June 30, 2000, I found myself at a Braves-Mets game at Shea Stadium as the Mets fell behind, 8-1.

This was the first Mets-Braves series in NYC after John Rocker's infamous verbal trashing of New York in a December '99 Sports Illustrated article. I'd bought tickets to two games, hoping to be there to boo Rocker in person for being a huge jerk. The first night of the series, I had that opportunity, and then watched the Mets fall to Rocker's unhittable pitches. This night was Game 2. My friend Tim and I were sitting up in the nosebleed seats, next to a group of special-needs adults with questionable hygiene who kept accidentally sitting in our seats, necessitating a few polite discussions on our part with the group leader.

The situation seemed grim on several levels, so I called my Mets-fan pal Jason down in his regular seats about a half mile closer to the action. I informed him that his team sucked, adding that if they came back to win, I would eat my shoe. It turned out to be one of the biggest Mets comebacks ever.

Final score: Mets 11, Braves 8.

About two years later, on Saturday, May 25, 2002, my brother and I were watching the Boston Celtics in the playoffs on TV, and he became increasingly agitated as the Celts fell woefully behind the New Jersey Nets. The Celtics were down 21, and I decided to try something. I announced, "Chris, if the Celtics win tonight, I will eat my shoe." It ended up being one of the biggest Celtics comebacks ever.

Final score: Celtics 94, Nets 90.

Last night, I watched the Celtics not bother to show up for the first quarter of Game 4 in the NBA Finals against the LA Lakers. My brother and I emailed back and forth as the game went on, with the Celts down as much as 24 points. Around halftime, with the Celts still down 58-40, I emailed my brother: "If they win tonight, Chris, I will eat my shoe."

Unless you live under a rock, you probably know what happened -- one of the greatest Celtics comebacks ever.

Final score: Celtics 97, Lakers 91.

So I have concluded that I have magical powers. This morning, my brother emailed me: "What does shoe leather taste like?" I wouldn't know -- the best thing about my apparent powers is that eating a shoe doesn't appear to be required. I haven't followed through on the promise yet.

Go Celtics!

Monday Night on My Own

Steve is out of town this week. I do miss him, but there's something about this evening that I'm really enjoying.

This Monday night, I don't have to watch his favorite program: Antiques Roadshow.

Instead, I'm watching the Bachelorette. She's kind of a shrew, based on this episode at least. She just bitched out all the guys for not paying attention to her at the pool. Nice.

Seriously, I think the Roadshow is better. But that's not what this is about.

This is about television freedom and control of the remote.