Logic and Proportion
o/` "One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all" o/`
----- "Go Ask Alice" performed by Jefferson Airplane
I had a doctor's appointment bright and early yesterday (which necessitated my going to bed at an ungodly early hour...wah, I felt like a grade schooler again!). All current medications seem to be working well and will be maintained at their current dosages. He did order new bloodwork because my cholestrol level and triglycerides haven't been checked since early last year. I'm expecting that one to yield even better news because we've been on Atkins for amost nine months now. In March of last year, my combined cholesterol was at 179 (down from 211) with my HDL at 92. Triglycerides were high, but we've since cut most of the fats which affect that from our diet and we rarely eat beef. This means the triglycerides should be within normal/optimal range this time. The bloodwork also includes a complete metabolic panel, TSH and free T4 levels, and Dilantin levels. He'd tried increasing my Dilantin because the last level came back low (only 2.6 and theraputic level is between 10-20) but it made me extremely ill. The next option is either finding a more effective anti-seizure medication which will give better and more consistent blood levels or leaving it as it is since I'm currently asymtomatic (meaning I have no detectible major seizures....you don't ever become cured of epilepsy). I'll make my decision when the lab tests come back. I have a history of returning low theraputic levels but maintaining the condition on them; one doctor mentioned that it might be a peculiarity of my blood chemistry that causes the levels to read lower than they actually are. Besides, I can't remember if we'd established a regular medication schedule at that point. The new labs will give me a better indicator of what I need to do. While I'm grateful that the complex partials seem to be suppressed, I still have the petit mals and they're annoying. I don't like "losing time" because my brain went out to lunch and forgot to tell me. I have another follow-up in three months. Here's my new weight: 390.
When I have early doctor's appointments, I have to spend the day at either the library or the mall. I'd have preferred the library but we were running late and with the traffic congestion I knew Simtra couldn't possibly make it to work on time if I asked him to detour. Some of you would probably love to be stranded at the mall with a credit card for the day, but that's just not my style. Generally, when I've browsed the book store, SunCoast, and the gaming shops I' m finished and I want to go home. At nine in the morning, only the book store is open. Freyja and I went inside and I headed for the regional interest shelves. I chose several books describing Florida's birds, woody vines and shrubbery, and trees and carted them back to the cafe where I ordered a chocolate covered rice crispy square and a large iced chai latte. I found only one of the books, a comprehensive botanical study complete with illustrations and photos, to be worth my time. The others were either eye candy or focused on too broad an area (I do not care what plants are in the entire Southeast; I want to know what's growing here, in my yard). Such books are expensive so I dutifully noted the ISBN number and then decided to browse science fiction, young adult, and children's literature.
I will, regretably, have to stop purchasing Star Trek novels. Many of those I looked at were clear departures from canon (ie: focusing primarily on original characters or starships with little mention made or connection to the main Star Trek universe....how do I know these guidelines, you ask? When Star Trek's main distributor was Pocket Books and the series was still in the early 30s, I wrote a draft for a Star Trek novel. Pocket Books took the trouble to write me personally, explaining that they would havel liked to buy the manuscript but they were bound by Gene Roddenberry's guidelines which dictated that events in a Star Trek novel had to revolve primarily around an established Star Trek character, ship, or location. This policy ultimately lead to the departure of many of their best writers, including Jean Lorrah, DC Fontana, and Howard Weinstein). Far too many of them, all appearing to be sequels to sequels in which Kirk and Picard have teamed up and Kirk/Shatner has somehow managed to return from the dead, are written by Shatner. He does the one thing I absolutely cannot abide in a novel: he doesn't separate his own ego and personality from the personality of the character. ARGH!
I had better luck with the young adult and children's literature. I found a cute series by Phyllis Naylor which follows the life of a girl named Alice from third grade through high school. I also found an excellent African American author named Sharon Draper. The quality of her novels reminds me of left_breathless' style; the characters are fresh, their problems are believable, and she doesn't just tack a happy ending onto situations which really have no resolution. I've always enjoyed reading adolescent novels and the two I bought written by her promise to inspire and entertain. It reminds me of my pre-furry days when I thought I was going to be a children's writer. Now, I'm actually thinking about returning to that. Children's literature and young adult books have always strived to reflect the real world of these children, but I still found it depressing that the subject matter, in the last twenty years, has traveled from parents who remarry, divorce proceedings, getting a new sibling, moving to an unfamiliar area or other once common household disruptors to the realm of gang warfare, HIV, drugs, teen pregnancy, unwanted foster children, racial discrimination, illiteracy, suicide, and cutting. If that's their world, it's a sad turn of events.
After I'd finished pillaging the book store, Freyja and I went outside to look at theater billboards so we could decide which movie we wanted most to see. I sat on one of the benches outside and let her have her breakfast and something to drink while I contemplated. Behind me, the wait staff at TGIFriday's was apparently breaking in a new set of crew members. The new ones were whining about the fact that they couldn't smoke outside the building or on the property while in uniform and bemoaning the fact that their cell phones had to either be turned off or left at home while they worked their shifts. I crossly thought that they should all be grateful they had jobs at all; I mean, it's not much of a hardship to give up cell phone usage for eight hours and if you're so addicted to cigarettes that you can't wait eight hours plus the transit time home to smoke one, maybe you should be thinking about taking care of that little addiction.
I walked around a bit inside and then decided to grab some lunch at TGIFriday's. While I understand that they're breaking in trainees, that does not excuse the poor service. If it weren't the only inexpensive restaurant in the mall (the food court does not take plastic anywhere), I would probably stop eating there at all. Their variant of the low carb menu should be titled "lower carb" because most of the foods are in the 15-19 carbs per serving range. They don't tell you how many servings are on the plate, either. I stuck with the buffalo wings and a house salad that had no croutons or garlic bread. The waitress didn't refill my water glass often or replace the lemon and she didn't bring any napkins or wet wipes --- even after I'd requested them.
I'd bought the ticket at an automatic kiosk earlier (I really wish they'd get these things fixed; I had to try three different machines before I got one that worked) and had decided to see Walking Tall. The priviews promised an interesting story about an ex-Marine who returns to his home town in Washington state only to find that the mill which fed its economy has been shut down, replaced by a casino that has introduced corruption and drug trafficking the community. Unfortunately, it turned out to be one of the worst hacked up movies I'd ever seen; some of the camera cuts weren't clean (and it wasn't a result of the unsuitable visual effects either) and you could actually discern the way the story SHOULD have been when it was written --- before the director decided the audience needed to see more of The Rock busting butt and less exploration of what could have been a powerful, gripping story line. Some of the gaping holes left by this kind of editing included:
- Why was his family cast biracially? The main character has an African American father and a Caucasian mother in a predominantly Caucasian town. His sister and her son are notably lighter skinned and an obvious blend of both races. A few brief mentions get dropped, indicating this might have been a factor in the trouble the main character finds, but it's never explored.
- What's the problem between the main character's father and him regarding guns? Again, the conflict is hinted at but never brought into the open and it plays a relatively major part in the story. It's suggested that his father didn't like his career choice and/or didn't want him to leave his home to join the Marines or that they argued over the use of a gun but that's all you get. According to some of the reviews I read, this may be a quirk of stories starring The Rock rather than an actual story element.
- The drug trafficking plot never fully materializes and that renders all of the fight scenes unbelievable. It's mentioned once in the beginning when the main character finds his nephew smoking marijuana and again after the nephew nearly dies of a crystal meth overdose. After that, a straight beeline is made to a conclusion that really has no support according to prior events: that the owner of the casino is using the shut down mill to manufacture and sell drugs.
- Where did the girl come from? A few brief scenes imply that they might have been high school sweethearts but he was somehow found unworthy (possibly due to the color of his skin) and she went with the rich owner of the casino instead, but they never talk about it. She just suddenly appears like so much useless eye candy.
The movie suffered from plot implausibilities as well:
- The main character somehow uses his Marine training to discover that the dice at the casino are loaded
- The amount of destruction and rage vented on the casino after the nephew overdoses is out of proportion to the brief mention of drug trafficking --- and he does all that damage with a flimsy 2x4
- At the trial, even though he admits to having committed the crimes for which he is appearing in court, he single handedly convinces a jury to acquit him based upon the fact that the casino is corrupted and he will run for sheriff to fix it ( there's no struggle with conscience, no wavering of opinion --- which is odd, considering all the time spent depicting the town as thoroughly in the shadow of this gambler/drug lord --- and in the next scene he's sheriff)
- He fires all the corrupt deputies and then promptly hires his own friends to fill the spaces (nepotism, anyone? And would the townspeople stand for that after having evicted one crooked sheriff already?)
- He goes around busting things and people up with absolutely no consequences in order to get them to give him the information he needs (again, wouldn't the townspeople object?)
- There's a big, pointless lovemaking scene in the jail as he keeps watch over a prisoner (again, would he have done this realistically after going to so much trouble to clean up the town?)
- At the climax, the girl who has never used a gun is suddenly able to target and shoot eight people successively
- Instead of calling for help, he shoots a hole in the floor with the shotgun and then crawls, military style, in the crawlspace where he then takes out everyone else (um...there's a buttload of radio equipment in the background. Wouldn't the logical course of events have been to radio for the state troopers and then hold the bad guys off until they came?)
- in the final scene, he gets a compound fracture just below the knee. He sets it (getting it straight the first time) and then, without binding it, hops around in karate fly kicks to finish the fight
- even though they wrecked it wrestling (and wouldn't the meth lab have exploded if it got broken up?), the saw mill is mysteriously operating again by the time credits roll (in spite of the fact that earlier they said the mill went out of business because of the lumber industry decline, which was why the casino was built in the first place)
I had huge problems with the "pound something until it bleeds, gives up, or goes away" mentality that dominated the middle part of the movie. You wanted him to solve the problem properly, especially after he starts to pick up the gun and then elects to leave it in the car. You wanted him to get the old deputies to swear allegiance, to rally the townspeople, to get them all to evict the drug dealer and his chronies as a unified town.
It doesn't happen and you lose respect for the main character because he uses the exact same methods he ranted against at the beginning of the movie to accomplish the task of ridding the town of the casino.
After the movie, I putzed around the mall some more. I bought four pairs of hoop style earrings, a box of mints for Simtra, and a manga he'd been looking for called "Candidate for Goddess". Trust me, the manga is much better than the poor, hacked up and renamed "Pilot Candidate" which Cartoon Network tried to air. I then got a cold drink from the coffee place as well as a cheese bagel and sat down to read my books and listen to talk radio. I didn't get much reading done, though, because that stupid porch salesman was harassing me. He kept asking if we'd thought about adding the porch to our house yet (Well...yes, I had --- and I'm not going to do business with someone who looks at me and decides for me how much I might be able to spend nor am I going to deal with someone who bothers me when I'm not even shopping for that particular product). Finally, Simtra came to get me and we stopped at Aisa Buffet for dinner.
naryu called during dinner; I told her we'd call her back because after nine in the evening our cell phone usage is free and we talked for a while after we got home. Nar would like to come down and visit but none of us can decide exactly when and how to make that happen. JetBlue's prices are pretty good right now but it might be simpler to cart her home with us after Anthrocon. Personally, I like her company so much I'd rather have her visit now to send her back in about two weeks and then collect her from Anthrocon and bring her down here again.
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all" o/`
----- "Go Ask Alice" performed by Jefferson Airplane
I had a doctor's appointment bright and early yesterday (which necessitated my going to bed at an ungodly early hour...wah, I felt like a grade schooler again!). All current medications seem to be working well and will be maintained at their current dosages. He did order new bloodwork because my cholestrol level and triglycerides haven't been checked since early last year. I'm expecting that one to yield even better news because we've been on Atkins for amost nine months now. In March of last year, my combined cholesterol was at 179 (down from 211) with my HDL at 92. Triglycerides were high, but we've since cut most of the fats which affect that from our diet and we rarely eat beef. This means the triglycerides should be within normal/optimal range this time. The bloodwork also includes a complete metabolic panel, TSH and free T4 levels, and Dilantin levels. He'd tried increasing my Dilantin because the last level came back low (only 2.6 and theraputic level is between 10-20) but it made me extremely ill. The next option is either finding a more effective anti-seizure medication which will give better and more consistent blood levels or leaving it as it is since I'm currently asymtomatic (meaning I have no detectible major seizures....you don't ever become cured of epilepsy). I'll make my decision when the lab tests come back. I have a history of returning low theraputic levels but maintaining the condition on them; one doctor mentioned that it might be a peculiarity of my blood chemistry that causes the levels to read lower than they actually are. Besides, I can't remember if we'd established a regular medication schedule at that point. The new labs will give me a better indicator of what I need to do. While I'm grateful that the complex partials seem to be suppressed, I still have the petit mals and they're annoying. I don't like "losing time" because my brain went out to lunch and forgot to tell me. I have another follow-up in three months. Here's my new weight: 390.
When I have early doctor's appointments, I have to spend the day at either the library or the mall. I'd have preferred the library but we were running late and with the traffic congestion I knew Simtra couldn't possibly make it to work on time if I asked him to detour. Some of you would probably love to be stranded at the mall with a credit card for the day, but that's just not my style. Generally, when I've browsed the book store, SunCoast, and the gaming shops I' m finished and I want to go home. At nine in the morning, only the book store is open. Freyja and I went inside and I headed for the regional interest shelves. I chose several books describing Florida's birds, woody vines and shrubbery, and trees and carted them back to the cafe where I ordered a chocolate covered rice crispy square and a large iced chai latte. I found only one of the books, a comprehensive botanical study complete with illustrations and photos, to be worth my time. The others were either eye candy or focused on too broad an area (I do not care what plants are in the entire Southeast; I want to know what's growing here, in my yard). Such books are expensive so I dutifully noted the ISBN number and then decided to browse science fiction, young adult, and children's literature.
I will, regretably, have to stop purchasing Star Trek novels. Many of those I looked at were clear departures from canon (ie: focusing primarily on original characters or starships with little mention made or connection to the main Star Trek universe....how do I know these guidelines, you ask? When Star Trek's main distributor was Pocket Books and the series was still in the early 30s, I wrote a draft for a Star Trek novel. Pocket Books took the trouble to write me personally, explaining that they would havel liked to buy the manuscript but they were bound by Gene Roddenberry's guidelines which dictated that events in a Star Trek novel had to revolve primarily around an established Star Trek character, ship, or location. This policy ultimately lead to the departure of many of their best writers, including Jean Lorrah, DC Fontana, and Howard Weinstein). Far too many of them, all appearing to be sequels to sequels in which Kirk and Picard have teamed up and Kirk/Shatner has somehow managed to return from the dead, are written by Shatner. He does the one thing I absolutely cannot abide in a novel: he doesn't separate his own ego and personality from the personality of the character. ARGH!
I had better luck with the young adult and children's literature. I found a cute series by Phyllis Naylor which follows the life of a girl named Alice from third grade through high school. I also found an excellent African American author named Sharon Draper. The quality of her novels reminds me of left_breathless' style; the characters are fresh, their problems are believable, and she doesn't just tack a happy ending onto situations which really have no resolution. I've always enjoyed reading adolescent novels and the two I bought written by her promise to inspire and entertain. It reminds me of my pre-furry days when I thought I was going to be a children's writer. Now, I'm actually thinking about returning to that. Children's literature and young adult books have always strived to reflect the real world of these children, but I still found it depressing that the subject matter, in the last twenty years, has traveled from parents who remarry, divorce proceedings, getting a new sibling, moving to an unfamiliar area or other once common household disruptors to the realm of gang warfare, HIV, drugs, teen pregnancy, unwanted foster children, racial discrimination, illiteracy, suicide, and cutting. If that's their world, it's a sad turn of events.
After I'd finished pillaging the book store, Freyja and I went outside to look at theater billboards so we could decide which movie we wanted most to see. I sat on one of the benches outside and let her have her breakfast and something to drink while I contemplated. Behind me, the wait staff at TGIFriday's was apparently breaking in a new set of crew members. The new ones were whining about the fact that they couldn't smoke outside the building or on the property while in uniform and bemoaning the fact that their cell phones had to either be turned off or left at home while they worked their shifts. I crossly thought that they should all be grateful they had jobs at all; I mean, it's not much of a hardship to give up cell phone usage for eight hours and if you're so addicted to cigarettes that you can't wait eight hours plus the transit time home to smoke one, maybe you should be thinking about taking care of that little addiction.
I walked around a bit inside and then decided to grab some lunch at TGIFriday's. While I understand that they're breaking in trainees, that does not excuse the poor service. If it weren't the only inexpensive restaurant in the mall (the food court does not take plastic anywhere), I would probably stop eating there at all. Their variant of the low carb menu should be titled "lower carb" because most of the foods are in the 15-19 carbs per serving range. They don't tell you how many servings are on the plate, either. I stuck with the buffalo wings and a house salad that had no croutons or garlic bread. The waitress didn't refill my water glass often or replace the lemon and she didn't bring any napkins or wet wipes --- even after I'd requested them.
I'd bought the ticket at an automatic kiosk earlier (I really wish they'd get these things fixed; I had to try three different machines before I got one that worked) and had decided to see Walking Tall. The priviews promised an interesting story about an ex-Marine who returns to his home town in Washington state only to find that the mill which fed its economy has been shut down, replaced by a casino that has introduced corruption and drug trafficking the community. Unfortunately, it turned out to be one of the worst hacked up movies I'd ever seen; some of the camera cuts weren't clean (and it wasn't a result of the unsuitable visual effects either) and you could actually discern the way the story SHOULD have been when it was written --- before the director decided the audience needed to see more of The Rock busting butt and less exploration of what could have been a powerful, gripping story line. Some of the gaping holes left by this kind of editing included:
- Why was his family cast biracially? The main character has an African American father and a Caucasian mother in a predominantly Caucasian town. His sister and her son are notably lighter skinned and an obvious blend of both races. A few brief mentions get dropped, indicating this might have been a factor in the trouble the main character finds, but it's never explored.
- What's the problem between the main character's father and him regarding guns? Again, the conflict is hinted at but never brought into the open and it plays a relatively major part in the story. It's suggested that his father didn't like his career choice and/or didn't want him to leave his home to join the Marines or that they argued over the use of a gun but that's all you get. According to some of the reviews I read, this may be a quirk of stories starring The Rock rather than an actual story element.
- The drug trafficking plot never fully materializes and that renders all of the fight scenes unbelievable. It's mentioned once in the beginning when the main character finds his nephew smoking marijuana and again after the nephew nearly dies of a crystal meth overdose. After that, a straight beeline is made to a conclusion that really has no support according to prior events: that the owner of the casino is using the shut down mill to manufacture and sell drugs.
- Where did the girl come from? A few brief scenes imply that they might have been high school sweethearts but he was somehow found unworthy (possibly due to the color of his skin) and she went with the rich owner of the casino instead, but they never talk about it. She just suddenly appears like so much useless eye candy.
The movie suffered from plot implausibilities as well:
- The main character somehow uses his Marine training to discover that the dice at the casino are loaded
- The amount of destruction and rage vented on the casino after the nephew overdoses is out of proportion to the brief mention of drug trafficking --- and he does all that damage with a flimsy 2x4
- At the trial, even though he admits to having committed the crimes for which he is appearing in court, he single handedly convinces a jury to acquit him based upon the fact that the casino is corrupted and he will run for sheriff to fix it ( there's no struggle with conscience, no wavering of opinion --- which is odd, considering all the time spent depicting the town as thoroughly in the shadow of this gambler/drug lord --- and in the next scene he's sheriff)
- He fires all the corrupt deputies and then promptly hires his own friends to fill the spaces (nepotism, anyone? And would the townspeople stand for that after having evicted one crooked sheriff already?)
- He goes around busting things and people up with absolutely no consequences in order to get them to give him the information he needs (again, wouldn't the townspeople object?)
- There's a big, pointless lovemaking scene in the jail as he keeps watch over a prisoner (again, would he have done this realistically after going to so much trouble to clean up the town?)
- At the climax, the girl who has never used a gun is suddenly able to target and shoot eight people successively
- Instead of calling for help, he shoots a hole in the floor with the shotgun and then crawls, military style, in the crawlspace where he then takes out everyone else (um...there's a buttload of radio equipment in the background. Wouldn't the logical course of events have been to radio for the state troopers and then hold the bad guys off until they came?)
- in the final scene, he gets a compound fracture just below the knee. He sets it (getting it straight the first time) and then, without binding it, hops around in karate fly kicks to finish the fight
- even though they wrecked it wrestling (and wouldn't the meth lab have exploded if it got broken up?), the saw mill is mysteriously operating again by the time credits roll (in spite of the fact that earlier they said the mill went out of business because of the lumber industry decline, which was why the casino was built in the first place)
I had huge problems with the "pound something until it bleeds, gives up, or goes away" mentality that dominated the middle part of the movie. You wanted him to solve the problem properly, especially after he starts to pick up the gun and then elects to leave it in the car. You wanted him to get the old deputies to swear allegiance, to rally the townspeople, to get them all to evict the drug dealer and his chronies as a unified town.
It doesn't happen and you lose respect for the main character because he uses the exact same methods he ranted against at the beginning of the movie to accomplish the task of ridding the town of the casino.
After the movie, I putzed around the mall some more. I bought four pairs of hoop style earrings, a box of mints for Simtra, and a manga he'd been looking for called "Candidate for Goddess". Trust me, the manga is much better than the poor, hacked up and renamed "Pilot Candidate" which Cartoon Network tried to air. I then got a cold drink from the coffee place as well as a cheese bagel and sat down to read my books and listen to talk radio. I didn't get much reading done, though, because that stupid porch salesman was harassing me. He kept asking if we'd thought about adding the porch to our house yet (Well...yes, I had --- and I'm not going to do business with someone who looks at me and decides for me how much I might be able to spend nor am I going to deal with someone who bothers me when I'm not even shopping for that particular product). Finally, Simtra came to get me and we stopped at Aisa Buffet for dinner.
naryu called during dinner; I told her we'd call her back because after nine in the evening our cell phone usage is free and we talked for a while after we got home. Nar would like to come down and visit but none of us can decide exactly when and how to make that happen. JetBlue's prices are pretty good right now but it might be simpler to cart her home with us after Anthrocon. Personally, I like her company so much I'd rather have her visit now to send her back in about two weeks and then collect her from Anthrocon and bring her down here again.