Happy birthday to jelene78 and cearafox, and housellama tomorrow!

Me again, thanks to misterx.

Happy birthday to cortneytree!

Poll #1384172 Twitter
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Should I give up and join Twitter too?

Do you use Twitter?

Can I make Twitter feed to lj for lazy people?

Here's a couple links to bento blogs where they're doing giveaways. If you win, you can give it to me, right? ;)

Maisie Eats Bento

Mission Vegan


Seen at a really awesome site, Lunchinabox.


(And I think I'm going to get my new Honda Fit today!)

From a CE I'm doing:

USE OF ANTIBIOTICS IN ABRS AND CHRONIC RHINOSINUSITIS
Symptoms of ABRS and chronic rhinosinusitis may be relieved with topical decongestants, topical steroids, antibiotics, nasal saline, topical cromolyn, or mucolytics, although the FDA has not approved any therapy as primary treatment for chronic rhinosinusitis. Antibiotic use for ABRS and chronic rhinosinusitis is controversial. Growing evidence suggests that in most patients who present with symptoms consistent with either condition antibiotics are not warranted.¹⁴ In spite of efforts to curb unwarranted use of antibiotics, the antibiotic prescription rate for these conditions is high, especially in cases with presumed ABRS.

Acute bacterial rhinosinusitis is difficult to diagnose definitively. It is estimated that 37% to 63% of patients given this diagnosis in fact do not have a bacterial cause.^15-18 In spite of that, 85% to 98% of such patients in the US receive antibiotics.¹⁹ The precise impact of widespread and unnecessary antibiotic use is difficult to assess; it includes medication-related costs, side effects and adverse events, and antibiotic resistance. The problem of "antibiotic pressure" and resulting antibiotic resistance of common bacterial pathogens is “[…] one of the world's most pressing public health problems. Over the last decade, almost every type of bacteria has become stronger and less responsive to antibiotic treatment when it is really needed.”²⁰ Antibiotic resistance is among the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) top concerns, and CDC guidelines call for a judicious use of antibiotics for acute and chronic rhinosinusitis, as well as other URIs and bronchitis. The following link: www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/community/antibiotic-resistance.htm#2 provides access to the CDC's detailed overview of antibiotic resistance, developed for both health care professionals and patients.

Note to self:
San Francisco City Pass (I think I did this one for Boston a few years ago, great deal.)
Go San Francisco Card This one includes a ton of things, but it's a bit pricy. Z might flip out looking at the price too. Tempting, but I don't know that we would manage to do enough things to make it worthwhile. It depends, do we want to be running every day? Are we wanting to do all the touristy things? How many of those do we really expect to visit versus the prices we would be paying without? More pondering is necessary.

Has anyone ever done something like this before? Did you get your money's worth?

I just wrote Congress to oppose the Orphan Works Bills. Please go here and do the same. It takes two minutes.  it sends via email and is pretty much already filled out for you.  Do both links to send it to everyone necessary.

http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11389061
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11389081


For those of you unaware of the Orphan works bill check out this link.  It is a very efficient explanation.  The first 40 seconds sum it up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqBZd0cP5Yc

Here's some pictures of me taken by misterx.

Watched bits and pieces of one of the worst movies EVER the other night, Feeders II - Slay Bells, in which Santa busts into a double wide and whoops up on some aliens creatures intent on terrorizing an innocent redneck family. Now if you happened to catch the first one on Mystery Science Theater, that should have been a hint to you not to see the second (so I hear). The second one is too bad for even those guys to sit through, although it was reviewed here. I've seen random internet porn with a home video camera with better production and effects. For this even to make a national release is amazing. Even more amazing, I would have guestimated the release date to be about 1985 or so, judging by the hairstyles, bad props, unconvincing acting, and home video atmosphere, but no, it was released in 1998. All in all, great comedy (and yes, we are laughing AT you, not with you), but not so much in the horror department. It's even funnier to watch the commentary and see the movie actors and directors take themselves so seriously. "Here in the basement is where we keep all of our props. This one's legs are made with chopsticks, and the head is a styrofoam ball..."


Anyway, if you want good entertainment, and like anime, check out "Scrapped Princess." The setting is not that unique. A typical renaissance piece with a princess and knights and magic and the like. The difference starts when someone calls a giant frog a "dragon." Yes, the characters were as confused as I was. Not to give away the plot, which also isn't terribly original, but as more clues fall into a place, we realize that they are the devolved remnants of a more technologically advanced society, on the cusp of change or possible apocalypse triggered by the princess, recently discovered to have survived in hiding after being "scrapped" at birth. This isn't filled with the typical anime silliness for the most part, and takes a more serious tone. I'm about nine episodes in, and I'm really enjoying it, even if the setting is a bit derivative.

Still haven't found a new car. I'm greatly leaning toward a Honda Fit or Civic, but need to go test driving Things and do more research. I'm not in a terrible hurry because my dad theoretically is going to let me borrow his Le Sabre when he fixes a hose on it. And Z and I are doing reasonably well switching back and forth. Plus, I still don't have my taxes done (which needs to happen soon.) Anyway, not looking forward to a car payment. Oh well.

Uploaded last night, taken on Sunday. I got struck by the redness of the door at melanie and misterx's house while visiting the other day, and luckily had grabbed my camera and brought it along. loreleidotcom happened to have a red shirt on, and these are the results of my artistic burst. Sorry not to post these at iridescent_eye, but I don't remember the password, and it's stored at home. :P





( ♥ ♥ Larger +3 ♥ ♥ )

Neat stuff for especially my artist friends.


"This three-minute video created by EggMan consists of images from 500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art."

I'll have to say, this is the best opening for an anime I've ever seen.

Ugh... I always get stomach cramps, and sometimes nausea. Even if it turns out to be something totally stupid.


Now for a poll!

Poll #1330517 Craft room colors
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

What color(s) should I paint the craft room? Z already said no to green. (That's going in the bedroom!)

I was just lamenting last night again about Fortune Dragon, my favorite Chinese place that closed a couple of years ago. I even had their number stored in my phone, but they had a sudden illness in the family and had to close. There aren't many places that will cook Kung Pao tofu for me, much less Kung Pao that is good. I have yet to find a suitable substitute. :( Of course, Ming Garden has a Mongolian BBQ bar which is fabulous, but not the same kind of fabulous.

I've been on and off playing games for FreeRice, a charity similiar to "Click to Give", which supports Hunger, Breast Cancer, Child Health, Literacy, Rainforests, and Animal Rescue... I'm sure you're familiar. Anyway, with Free Rice, you actually answer questions to "earn" your gift. I started off on English and did ok, then switched to Spanish and did mostly fine. Today on a whim I thought I would try Italian to see how I much I can piece together, and am surprisingly in the 8-10 level (out of 10) range. Not that I could go translate a book or anything, but I rock at Linguistics.