House of Pain

Jump up, jump up and get down.

Actually, the title doesn't so much refer to cool Irish rappers, but rather the state of our house. Everyone is stricken with something, with severity ranging from phantom owies to plague like conditions that used to thin out civilizations. We're just cool like that.

Alex and Zoe, thankfully, are fine. Alex has a slight case of the crazies, but usually we just call that mornings. Nothing out of the ordinary. Zoe has a slight case of the melancholies, she was climbing up a different ladder type thing at the playground and when she got on top, we applauded her and cheered her on. She looked at us deadpan for a few moments, and then just sighed and went on her way.

My mother's had headaches on and off, but her neck/shoulder has been bothering her the most. She wakes up from the pain, with pain, and she's going to go for physical therapy soon. I probably will have to drive her despite her insistence that I take the bus - I don't mind doing that and killing an hour on the laptop, although I think it bothers my mom because she has to be in her bra during therapy. I actively stare at my laptop the last time that happened. I got enough mental problems.

My wife's got us all beat because she came home from the doctors yesterday and had a doctor's diagnosis of having pneumonia - so she's got the next few days off. She's not exactly having a ball having time off though, she's coughing pretty heavily and at times I expect some internals to fly out of her mouth, the way she's coughing so hard. She coughs like some protagonist with consumption in a tragic love story. I feel bad for her, and I ask her if she's okay while turning on the closed captioning to the TV.

As for me, the same old thing. They took the dressing out of my lower right tooth (but not the salad, the bastards), and now the hole in my mouth feels lonely and quite painful. So Vicodin's in my system and ibuprofen as well, chased with some whiskey and a handful of some pink pills I found behind the couch. I think it's cold medicine or birth control pills. I'll let you know in 9 months. But anyway, I'm supposed to irrigate my holey tooth with a syringe to make sure it's cleaned out. It tickles, but not as much as the rash on my hoohah.

A Color Quiz

So, I don't really have any content since I ran out of Vicodin, so I took a quiz. I shall comment accordingly, in bold italics because it's more dramatic. You can find out what the hell's wrong with you at The Color Quiz.

Your Existing Situation

Readily participates in things that provide excitement or stimulation. Wants to feel exhilarated.

Yes, and no. Participates in things like videogames and other forms of procrastination, yeah. Naked skydiving? Not so much. I want to feel free, not so much exhilarated.

Your Stress Sources

Wants to overcome a feeling of emptiness and of separation from others. Believes that life still has far more to offer and that he may miss his share of experiences if he fails to make the best use of every opportunity.

Very much so. I think they're watching me right now. I should probably stop touching myself if that is the case. But it does feel good... I'll stop in a second.

He therefore pursues his objectives with a fierce intensity and commits himself deeply and readily. Feels himself to be completely competent in any field in which he engages, and can sometimes be considered by others to be interfering or meddlesome.

HAHAHAHAHAHA. It said I was competent.

Your Restrained Characteristics

Very exacting in the standards he applies to his choice of a partner and seeking a rather unrealistic perfection in his sex life.

I don't have unrealistic ideals of perfection in my sex life. All I care is that I get to cum.

What?

Your Desired Objective

Wants to make a favorable impression and be recognized. Needs to feel appreciated and admired. Sensitive and easily hurt if no notice is taken of him or if he is not given adequate acknowledgment.

If that's okay with you. Is that okay with you? Do I need to do something different? I can add some photos, maybe make the blog prettier. Why are you looking away? Am I boring you? Look at me. Please. Look!

Your Actual Problem

Afraid that he may be prevented from achieving the things he wants and therefore demands that others should recognize his right to them.

That's right. So transfer all your savings to my production company right now, and you will see the most badass feature film ever to come out of an indie filmmaker.

Your Actual Problem #2

Strongly resists outside influence and any interference with his freedom to make his own decisions and plans. Works to establish and strengthen his own position.

Sadly very true, which is probably why I'll never get anywhere in life because the world doesn't work like that. They need validation from others that I'm a capable human being, not some guy who works for himself, is his own boss, and has his own ideas. Sigh. Fucking color quiz.

Today was a Good Day

These past couple weeks I've been pretty down on myself - between the pain of getting the wisdom teeth pulled and the stress of editing and feeling sorry for myself, it all gets a little gloom and doom.

So today was a very welcome change of pace. I had a follow-up appointment today for my wisdom tooth, the one corner where they had to cut the bone in order to remove the tooth, and they changed out the dressing. Anyway, by the time I got home I was actually in a pretty good mood, and that pretty much was sustained throughout the whole day. I mean, what a difference in everything. I had fun with the kids tonight, cooked dinner, even cheated and watched "The Departed" as well.

Oh, it should be noted though, my wife and I didn't really do anything today - we have a money issue right now, but also she had to work tonight and we didn't really plan anything anyway. But I think we were both okay about it. The kids got some Valentine's candy from Grandma, so it was all good.

But when the kids got up from their nap, we went out for a walk and the kids got on their rainboots, and they got to go splashing in puddles, which they enjoyed thoroughly. Alex got to hold a stick over the water and pretend he was fishing, and Zoe got to jump around the puddle.

I fixed spaghetti for dinner, which isn't really a big deal but it was for me, since I hadn't cooked in quite a while. The kids enjoyed their dinner and then we got to watch "The Iron Giant" tonight, which I remember was a really great movie. Well, actually I didn't watch it, instead watching "The Departed" on my laptop. It's a remake of "Infernal Affairs", starring Andy Lau and Tony Leung, which after some thought, is ultimately better than the remake because it actually had more depth than the American counterpart, which is quite rare a distinction for a Hong Kong movie. I dunno, seems like the bonds were stronger in "Infernal", but "The Departed" was still pretty good nonetheless.

Another thing I did was post some of my old stuff on youtube, including the trailer for Gonzo, Authorship, the blooper reel for Authorship, and some other interesting stuff. However, I'm not going to lead you to Youtube. Consider this a plug for The Chipper Report.

Procrastination

One of my biggest faults as a human being is my propensity to procrastinate. Look it up and it's like a bullet point for all my personality traits. Fear of failure. Perfectionism. A sense of feeling like I need time for leisure. Fear of rejection. While realizing that isn't really a cure for it, it does help me understand some of the obstacles that I need to overcome. I think another one of my deals is that I can't handle massive projects, and weddings happen to be one of them. I just finished a photo montage and it was at best, a 5 hour project maybe, scattered through a couple days. I didn't really stress out about it, in fact was sorta fun and I even threw in a couple other things to make the DVD more rewatchable. Small projects are really kind of more my thing - I suppose that has to do with my preference towards magazines, comic strips, singles, and video games. Very goal oriented, short investments of time.

So I've got another 15 days until this next wedding is due, and I'm still on the bride getting ready. Sometimes I just look at the footage and just get bored. But I just gotta look at it this way, 4 more weddings to edit and then I'll just stop forever. Doing weddings is kinda like editing the same type of story over and over again. The story structure is the same, and most of the times the content is samey.

Sigh.

Alex has been going through a stubborn, argumentative stage these couple days. He'll argue with you and say things like, "I'm doing this, ok?" and he's been getting time outs for it. Seems like he's gotten used to bossing his sister around, and he thinks he can get away with doing it with his parents. But I guess it's all in phases. Seems like as Zoe gets out of her whiny stage, Alex gets in his bossy stage. Zoe's due for some kind of behavioral flare up next...

Right now I'm sitting in a physical therapist's office while my mom's getting her shoulder looked at. Get a lot of work done when she's getting medical attention.

Some Other Photos

They were having fun the other night chasing each other. They're looking at Zelda on the TV.



Yes, I know I'm the Man.




Zoe actually wanted me to take a photo of her doing that.



My wife explaining to Zoe how she was conceived.

Some Photos

They were both sitting on a cement block that held up the handicapped parking sign, and both mesmerized by the activities.



I love this shot because it's such a wonderment type shot. I think even though we don't see his face, one could imagine what it'd be like.



I wanted to take a photo of Alex smiling pleasantly as he was enjoying the Lion Dance, and I was surprised that he lifted up his hand to kind of acknowledge me. In the other photos, he looks like he's trying to block his face, but he was just giving me a nice little, "Hi Dad" wave.




At the end, it became all worthwhile - we hadn't planned on going up to the dancers, but other parents were doing it but we managed to finagle one last photo op just as they were leaving, and Alex got his wish. He was holding his hand out through most of the Lion Dance because we teach him if he wanted stray cats to come to him, just hold out his hand and wait for them to come to you. So he held his hand out, hoping for contact. So when the Lion bent down and even let Alex put his hand in its mouth, you know the little boy had a pretty neat day...

Zelda is too Scary for Me

At least that's what Alex says.

The last few days I've been playing about 45 minutes of Zelda after the kids get up, since I finally got past the infernal fishing stage that stalled me from advancing in the game. It's a bit of a trick that once you get, it's not a problem. But if you don't know the trick, it can make you very angry and make you throw stuff at cars, like blades of grass or bursts of carbon dioxide.

Anyway, the kids have been interested in it for the most part, having me in doggie form and then in Link form, except the character Link has been changed to my name, and my Horse's name is now Glue. Anyway, I'm going around as the dog and all that's cute and whatnot, and then as Link I get to swing at the giant plants and spiders and trolls, and that's all fine. But I came into one of the tunnels and there's this hugish spider, red, life-size in comparison to Link (well, quite a bit bigger I suppose), and a not very cartoonish. I slayed the bugger no problem yesterday, and all that was fine, but today I had to replay the level a bit, and Alex got a little flustered and held his face and said, "No spiders, Daddy. It's too scary for me! Game is too scary for me!" I told him it wasn't real but he didn't seem to hear me because he was turned the other way with his hands all over his head, so I did what a responsible parent would do.

I put on a kids show in the dining room so I could play a little longer in the living room.

Don't judge me. I'm terminally ill.

So, that one's out the window along with Call of Duty. It's funny, I'm not that much of a Zelda fan, not much of a fantasy, RPG, Strategy kind of gamer, but Zelda's alright. Enough action and enough interest to pull me through the text and puzzles, and most of the time the puzzles have relatively practical solutions, not like some asshole puzzle that the ancient people of Annoyingland concocted to prevent the Unchosen Ones from getting to. They just make you look at the problem, and then figure it out. Very sparse with clues. So, it's quite fun and I'm enjoying it a bit.

As for the kids, I did my part as Daddy today and played with the kids earlier. Got some footage I'd like to upload when I get the time, they were having fun playing with us this afternoon. Tomorrow we're going to take the kids to Uwajimaya to see some of the Chinese New Year celebrations, with the Lion Dance the kids should be pretty entertained. As for me, getting out of the house once in a while should be good for me. Get some activity with the Nikon and I should be on my way back to being a semi-normal human being.

Meet My Browser

So sometimes I use Firefox for specific tasks, like for Blogger, Gmail, and some other sites because some of the frills don't show up on Mac's Safari, which is a nice little browser. Well, one of the themes that Firefox has is a little fun, although I have to say it's probably too distracting to use on an everyday basis. It's crazy colorful and perhaps a bit too much to conduct any serious business. Like blogging about teeth.

Oh, Okay.

My wife had told me this earlier, but either because I was so hopped up on drugs or that I was dying of pain, it didn't register. But I guess the reason why there's been such a headache and the pain has been worse in one corner of my mouth is because the wisdom tooth in the lower right was actually so messed up it had grown into my jawline. So they essentially had to cut into the bone in my face to free up that tooth, and that's why the pain is causing the headaches.

Today it's doing better than the other mornings, still pain in minor touches, but I did go all night without any middle of the night doses of anything. Eating is still a pain - last night I had antibiotic pasta with antibiotic Diet coke, which all taste bitter and icky. Man, I want real food so bad. Like a big Subway sandwich.

Oh well, gotta do some serious work now. Fell behind all week.

My Pissy Rant

Yeah, this isn't a fun post, so if you're not in the mood for incessant whining with little merit, it's probably best to skip this post.

Well, the swelling has gone down a little, but not that much. I still have to adhere to the percocet (ran out of Vicodin) and 4 ibuprofen for the headache and toothache every 4 to 5 hours - problem is, the percocet tends to make me naueous and dizzy and fatigued, and I'd like to do without it but the headaches are quite unbearable. So I take it, and I feel like sleeping the whole day.

Went to the follow-up appointment today at the oral surgeon, and they didn't do much except repack the lower right side of my mouth, and refilled my Vicodin. I didn't get really anything looked at, just took out the painful pack and then shoved another in there, and now the whole day I've been tasting antiseptic, which is bitter and quite unsettling. It's like I have someone's old toothbrush in my mouth.

So I came back, in pain, drowsy, and tried to work on an old job. I did a wedding and sent it off, and she wanted the whole thing redone because I got the date and location wrong at the beginning of the video, and for some odd reason it tends to skip a bit too, which is odd. So I've been trying to reconnect the media but it's been freaking out on me. Relinking the wrong clips to the source material and whatnot, so it's been a freaking headache. I'm trying a cheat right now, see if that works without having to reauthor the DVD. We'll see.

The last 5 days of soup, instant noodles, and ice cream is getting on my nerves too. I see food ads and I'd kill to have a burger, some pasta, something substantial. The soft foods experience is driving me batty and annoyed. I'm going to try some stuffed pasta, see how that goes.

And yeah, I feel like a nap now, but I still gotta make sure the kids have dinner. My recovery time is no doubt longer than most people, but I'm ready for it to be over. I'm so out of it I can't work, but I can't relax because I'm on a lot of deadlines. Man, I need some relief soon.

The other thing that's annoyed me is hearing about the Chair of Comedy Central having to step down because of the whole Boston Teen Aqua Force Bomb scare. I think it's stupid and it's just a network trying to scapegoat someone in order to avoid legal action, because a bunch of people got excited at a LED display that was never ever made to resemble any type of bomb. It's atrocious. GNNNNAAAHHH I'm pissed.