Wednesday, August 31, 2005

***Zombie Alert***

THREAT LEVEL - ELEVATED

The possibility of thousands of dead. A city deemed uninhabitable for 3-4 months. Bodies left to float. Not to mention a history of voodoo and black magic. These are the ingredients that make for the perfect breeding ground for zombies.
Once it starts, it'll spread fast. Too fast to stop. Preparations should be made now. If you have a zombie emergency plan, now is the time to activate it. If you don't have one, it is imperative to make one now. It is highly recommended that you obtain a copy of The Zombie Survival Guide at once.
Due to the scope of the disaster in Louisiana, we are faced with a possible Class 3 outbreak. For an example of how serious a Class 3 outbreak is, here is an Infection Simulator . As you will see, once it begins, there is almost no way to stop it.
As a public service, the Weymouth Zombie Patrol suggests the following measures be taken should you not already have an established emergency plan.
1. Obtain weapons. Firearms are the best defense. Check with your local law enforcement agencies about firearm regulations. PLEASE NOTE: Many states have mandatory waiting periods for firearms, especially hand guns. Buy now! Your best bet is a minimum of 3 guns: High powered rifle for distance shooting, a shotgun for close quarter fighting, and a handgun for last resort defense. Do not forget to stock pile the appropriate ammunition as well.
2. Seek defendable shelter. Your existing domicile may or may not suffice. You can fortify your current housing with wooden planks, boards and heavy nails. You can never have too much.
3. Create a stockpile of non-perishable food. Shop now, before panic and looting set in.
4. Devise a realistic escape plan. If you live in a highly populated area, your best chance for survival is getting out. There is no need to move to the hills until the outbreak occurs. Now is the time to chose a destination and secure shelter.
5.Pay close attention to the news. At the onset of an outbreak, there will be attempts to suppress the truth. Only by paying close attention will you be prepared.
And finally, should you come in contact with the living dead, DESTROY THE BRAIN!
And always save one bullet for yourself. The infection rate from zombie bites is 100%.

Godspeed to all of, especially the people of the Gulf region. Hopefully, an outbreak will not occur. If it should, we must all work together. Our survival depends upon it.

Monday, August 29, 2005

Help me Jeebus

Since it seems to be such an overwhelmingly difficult concept for some people to grasp, I'm going to spell out, in plain English, some of the more basic policies that the VNAB operates on.

Medicare pays us by 60 day episodes. Every 60 days, a patient needs to be recertified in order for us to continue billing, and thus get paid, by Medicare.
If a patient should be in the hospital on day 60, they have to be discharged and re-admitted when they get out of the hospital.
End of fucking story.
It's a pretty simple concept. In the hospital on day 60, re-admit. Apparently, the good folks in CI can't grasp this concept. It causes a lot of problems. It makes me mad. What would take them 30 seconds to determine if they weren't too god damn lazy to check takes me upwards of 10 hours TO FIX.

Start of Care means just that. The date we started caring for someone. The start date of an admission. And by start, I mean begininning. Now, when CI gets a referral, they put a SOC date in, usually the same date as the referral. So, when Clinician A sees the patient for the first time, they often have to change the Start of Care date to match the day they started caring for the patient. Seeing as it's a start date, it should be the first visit.
So, if you pull up a patient's record, and the SOC that is on the record is from last year, and there are lots of visits already in there, you probably have the wrong episode. What should you do?
Change the SOC date? NO!
Seriously. I know it's my job to fix mistakes, but let's use a little common fucking sense. I'm really getting sick of dealing with idiotic mistakes that wreck all kinds of havoc. Use your fucking brains, people. Please!

In other news, Curb Your Enthusiasm is back. It's long overdue.

I called the landlord when I got home from work today. Our bedroom wall is leaking. The ceiling has water stains all over it, and water was flowing out of the baseboard, all over a pile of my clothes and our boxspring. The landlord didn't seem too phased, and called back to tell me the guy upstairs would start replacing the roof.
All well and good, except that the freaking deck he put on is still not done. I'm pretty sure it's a reasonable expectation of renters that water will not flow out of your bedroom walls. I could be wrong. Add to that the beetles which are suddenly all over the living room, and the asbestos siding all over the yard, and you've got one unhappy tenant. I don't know what to do. I want out of this shit hole, but we're not ready to buy yet, and I really don't want to rent another apartment.
What to do. I just sent an email to the Weymouth Board of Health, so we'll have to wait and see what develops from that.

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Tag, you're it!

My good friend Mycalls just tagged me with a meme. For this meme, I'm supposed to list out 10 tunes I've been listening to a lot lately.
Note: there is a difference between 10 tunes you love at the moment and 10 tunes that you can't seem to get out of your life at the moment, but for me, almost all of this list falls into the love category.


I’m Just a Little Black Rain Cloud – Winnie the Pooh
TK Jr. is on a real Pooh kick right now, and I hear this song every day. I've been caught on several occasions singing it to myself at the printer.

Prairie Lullaby - Mike Nesmith
I fell in love with this song, and use to sing it to TK Jr when he cried at night. I found the album it's on the other night, and it still chokes me up.

Like a Hurricane - Neil Young
One of KG's all time faves. I heard it on the radio today on my way to the laundromat, and have been humming it ever since.

Kawliga - Hank Williams, Sr.
OK, I admit it's The Residents' version that is stuck in my head, but I'll give credit where credit is due.

All For the Best – Godspell
CH always questions my hetero-ness when I start singing this. Hey, I like Godspell. My sis and I spent many an hour in the backseat of my Dad's Camaro listening to it on 8 track. It's imprinted.

Ain't Gonna Rain No More - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
On my JS journal, I finally got to the point in my life where I chronical the demise of my first marriage. This song nicely sums up how I felt after I left Belmore.

Highly Illogical - Leonard Nimoy
I'm not sure why, but just making this list put this in my head, and now I need to listen to it.

Folklore - 16 Horsepower
OK, I know the idea is to list songs, but other than the above, it's been mostly albums as a whole that I've been listening to lately. If I had to pick a track, I'd say Outlaw Song.

The Warner Bros Album - The Residents
Super rare, I thought I'd never hear it. I even played it for TK Jr, though what he thought of it I can not tell.

In Sounds From Way Out - The Beastie Boys
I got this a while back, and rediscovered it past week. Good stuff.

Well, I was going to watch Napolean Dynamite tonight, but now I want to listen to some music. Plus, I kinda got sucked into Pterodactyl .
So, let's keep the meme going. Molius, consider yourself tagged. And Alabama Blue, I tag you too.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Me, myself and Eye

I broke fast, then sat back and gave listen to Animal Lovers.
Holy shit.
The Residents sound sad. Weary. Now I feel weary too.
I'm reminded of why I stopped listening to NPR years ago. The world is a messed up place. People do some incredibly fucked up things.
For example, Buy or Die!

I'd have to rate this is one of their best albums ever. I'm sitting here right now, feeling the need to invest a little more heavily in making life right.

And now for something completely different...

Spam!
I don't know what precipitated the sudden deluge of spam comments. Since I began this little blog, I've only ever had one. Today... 5!
So, no more anonymous comments, and for those that are kind enough to leave their 2 cents, you'll have to do a little word verification.

Looks like tomorrow I'll be donning an ape suit after work. It's been a while since I played at being a plushy. J&F are wrapping up filming on the Weymouth After Dark movie, and I've been asked to play Bigfoot. How can I resist?
Speaking of cryptozoology, right after this fascinating show on rubber , I'll be sitting back and relaxing to Animal Lovers.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Have you seen my wife, Mr Jones?

Living on the South Shore, I have the pleasure of driving through the Central Artery Tunnel every day. That wonderful engineering marvel that promised us freedom from soul crushing traffic.
Most Massachusetts residents are aware of the many problems associated with the tunnel. Many people appeared to be shocked that oversights were made. Oversights? More like built in job security.
Anyway, driving home today, I got to spend a little more time than I like to in the tunnel. And I noticed something that stuck me as odd. There are sections of wall which have been removed to allow inspection of the support beams. It's kind of cool... all this dark grey flameproofing material, and these huge vertical steel girders. I've seen them for some time now, and there has to be at least 20 10-20ft sections exposed throughout the tunnel. Each section has maybe 4-5 beams exposed.
So, today I'm driving by, and I notice that most of the beams have the word "OK" spray painted on them in orange. And I wondered, what's up with the beams that don't say "OK"?

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Google Me

I'm in a list mood as of late.
So, as I mentioned earlier, the nice folks at Site Meter are kind enough to show me the google searches that bring strays into my site.
I got another weird one yesterday, so I thought I'd list them for your viewing pleasure. If you don't believe me, try them yourself and watch this site come popping up.

slammin granny in the fanny
animals fucking
secret thoughts of stuffed animals
cathay center
weymouth after dark

hhhhmmm. They only list my last 100 hits. There were more google results, but they escape me now. I guess there are some odd people out there in internet land. Not much of a surprise.

So, let's see if I can't increase the odds of odd traffic.

lucky bastard
nude swimming
featherweight ball bearings
king kong kitchee kitchee kemio
eat exuding oinks
pete's red rush ale
OK soda
crankshaft fluid
doo wop
i left my job at the wawa
atrocity exhibition
c is for conifer
musical chairs
pearl necklace
trouser snake

Monday, August 22, 2005

Ha ha ha



Armed Robber Was Really a Stormtrooper

After all, Jesus wasn't built in a day

Well, I was going to leave off posting about The Residents for a while, but I received an unexpected and super sweet treat today, so here we go again.
Mostly for my own amusement, I thought I'd provide a list of all The Rez albums I own. Most of them have been hard to come by (thank you eBay!), and each is special in it's own way. So, with the hope of making a few more converts, here we go:

Meet the Residents Their first "album". I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point, but it is one of their best. The song "Infant Tango" was referrenced on an episode of The Simpsons.
The Third Reich and Roll Classic Residents, and one of my all time favorites. Want to clear out a party? Toss this disc in and watch them flee!
Duckstab/Buster & Glen Probably the most commercial of their albums. You can really see their influence on Les Claypool on this one. That is, if you're a Primus fan.
Eskimo I have this on DVD. It's The Resident's most famous album, and one of their oddest. The first time KG and I watch it, we were mesmerized. Seriously trippy. Make sure you wear a sweater.
Commercial Album Also on DVD. The videos are mostly new, with the exception of the 4 "One minute song" videos. I've only listened to it once, so I don't have much to say. I do like how they bought 40 different commercial spots on San Francisco radio and played the album one track at a time.
The Mark of the Mole Part 1 of the Mole trilogy, and guest starring Penn Gillete no less!
The Tunes of Two Cities Part 2, all instrumental. A totally schizophrenic album, the tracks alternate between the Moles and the Chubs.
The Big Bubble Part 3, and usually the least favorite Rez album among the fans. I like it, a lot. The story goes that the band was pissed off at their management, and this album was the result. "Gotta Gotta Get" is my all time favorite Rez song.
George & James I really haven't given this enough air time to comment on.
Stars and Hank Forever Another one of my favorites. The Hank Williams covers are fairly straight forward and creepy as hell. The "Stars and Stripes" cover is awesome. Sadly, I only have this on vinyl.
God In Three Persons Another one I haven't given much air time. The concept is interesting, the music just didn't do it for me the first time around.
The King & I The residents do Elvis! This album is great, though I've heard it doesn't live up to the live versions from the Cube E tour. At any rate, One of my faves. The baby king parts are disquieting.
Freakshow A whole album dedicated to side show freaks, sung from their perspective. Who could ask for more?
Wormwood A collection of curious Bible stories. Indeed. This is the album that turned me into a serious fan.
Diskomo/Goosebump I blogged about this the other day. Good shit.
Residue Deuz The first Rez album I ever got. Oddly enough, it's all outtakes, and hardly representative of the band. No matter. I was in love.
Cube-E I just picked this up a few weeks ago, and haven't had the oppurtunity to listen to it. It looks promising.
Hunters This is a sountrack they did for the Discovery Channel.
13th Anniversary Show Live from Tokyo. Another one I need to spin again.
Petting Zoo Touted as a compilation for newbies, this is sort of a best of. Probably a good place to start, as most songs are relatively "ear friendly".
Demons Dance Alone One of the best of the best albums, marking the death of the now iconic eyeballs. I have the delux double CD version, and the bonus disc is pretty sweet.
High Horses. Ever have nightmares about being trapped on a sinister merry-go-round? No? Listen to this and you will.
Whew. Holy crap, that was a lot of work. What can I say, I love these guys!
Oh, I did forget to mention my newest addition:
The Warner Bros. Album.
Thanks, Molius. I'm glad you now share the maddness.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Yes, I am a little short for a fucking stormtrooper!!

Friday, August 19, 2005

Animal Lovers

OK, I apologize for the overwhelming Residential content as of late.
Anyhow... I was checking my site meter, and was amused to see the following referral:


Come again?

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Welcome to Difficult Listening Hour

I love you and cause I do
My skies have changed
From grey to blue.
But blue's not just
A color of the rainbow.

It's shade is not a hazy hue
But pure and hard
My blue sky blue
It's like a Roman candle
Coming rosebuds.

"Your words are empty hollow bleatings
Of a mental crutch.
They're open festered indigestion
With a velvet touch
An ether eating Eskimo
Would gag upon your sight,
Convulsed into oblivion
from laughter or from fright.
A coma with a sweet aroma
Is your only dream,
Malignant with the misconception
That a grunt can gleam.
Your lichen covered corpuscles
Are filthy as a fist.
Infection is your finest flower
Mildewed in the mist."

I love you and cause I do
My skies have changed
From grey to blue.
But blue's not just
A color of the rainbow.

It's shade is not a hazy hue
But pure and hard
My blue sky blue
It's like a Roman candle
Coming rosebuds.
Blue Rosebuds.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Shame On Jew

Israeli settlers liken Gaza withdrawal to Holocaust


I'm sorry, I find that fucking disgusting.

We got bats!

Yup, discovered that last night. I was sitting on the porch around 11:30, and saw 3 or 4 of them flittering about, catching bugs in the moonlight. Pretty cool.
Today was kind of a stressful day. Work was OK, but KG was having a rough time with her doctor, and that of course means stress for me.
KG suffers from GERD . She takes Prilosec to treat it. Well, turns out Prilosec is a Category C pregnancy risk medication, which basically means you can't take it while pregnant. I did a little research, and discovered that Prevacid is a Category B, which is considered safe. She was on it while carrying TK Jr.
She's also on another med that is also a C, and there is an alternate med that she could take which is a B.
Well, her primary MD won't prescribe either. She's not comfortable with it. She wants KG to get her OB to prescribe it. Which means KG has to make tons of calls back and forth, while at work to try and get this done. And no one wants to co-operate. Point being, as of this moment, she doesn't have either.
The medical establishment in this country is so hell bent on protecting fetuses that they give no concern to the needs of the person carrying said fetus. Umm... mommy's health and mental well being is indeed vital to the healthy development of the baby. Half the things they don't want pregnant women consuming are discouraged not because they've been proven to do a baby harm. They are discouraged because no one knows if they have any negative effect. They'd rather not take chances. What the fuck?
To top that off, KG had taken TK Jr. to the doctor's on Monday. For his annual check up. He came out fine, with the exception of a nagging cough he's had for a few weeks. No other signs of trouble. No fever, no listlessness. Nothing. They took a throat culture, and KG was led to believe that came back negative. (I'm not sure why they would tell her that. I ain't a doctor, and I know it takes a few days to get results from a culture. You have to culture it and all) Not finding any obvious problem, they sent her to the hosptial for chest X rays. Even though his O2 stats were normal and his lung sounds were clear. So, an hour or two at the hospital, a cranky, crying 2 year old, and negative results.
Today I get home, there's a voice mail from the pedi doctor, TK Jr has strep. Needs antibiotics. KG is so pissed, I can't even talk to her about it.
Wonderful.
In brighter news, I wrapped up another evening of filming with the Weymouth After Dark crew. It was a lot of fun, and I think we got some good footage. I'm looking forward to seeing the final product.
Taking a note from Molius' last comment, I brought in a few Rez albums for him to listen too. I'm trying to get another convert.
All in all, a busy day. I'm hoping tomorrow is slightly less eventful.
Oh, yeah... in case you were wondering, it appears that my boys can still swim. We're not really saying anything to people at this point, because she's probably not even a month along. Its a touchy time, and usually not advisable to start sharing the news at this point. But we're not so good at keeping secrets.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Theories on phoentic organization

Or in other words, spending the evening listening to The Residents. I made mention of their album The Third Reich and Roll last week while filming the WAD movie, so I thought I'd make a mixed tape for J&F. Mmmmm, not for everyone, but I do love them.
I haven't made a mixed tape in a looong time. In this age of CDRs and MP3s, it seems like an archaic and painful process. But there's a simple pleasure, something familiar and comfortable about doing it the old way.
Which makes me think about how I got in to The Residents in the first place. It was back in my AOL days. I had struck up a IM friendship with some 40 year old divorcee in Quincy. Strickly platonic, mind you. Any old how, we were discussing music, and I was going on at some length about Nick Cave , who I had just really gotten into. ( OK, I admit TK Jr. was named after him, but I swear i didn't realize I had picked the same middle name as well. ) My online buddy was familiar with him, and said if I liked Cave, I'd probably dig The Rez as well. She related to me a story about the one time she heard one of their albums at a party. The host put the album on without preamble. The music creeped her out to no end. She told me that they had apparently recorded an entire album of children's songs, played on insturments purchased at Toys R Us.
Thus began a near obsessive search. S he didn't know the name of the album.
So, I started hitting the record stores. It's pretty damn hard to find a Resident's album in your run of the mill mall. They are fairly esoteric, which of course only heightened the appeal for me. I managed to pick up 2 albums in a shop, neither one being the one she mentioned. I was instantly hooked. What the Hell they have to do with Nick Cave, I'll never know. But I'm glad she turned me on to them.
BTW.. 19 albums later, I'm happy to report I managed to score the fabled disc. Goosebumps. Very creepy.
I do ramble on. Almost time for Rescue Me.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Weekend's end

Well, it's been a full and tiring weekend. I'm kind of wishing I had a day or two to recover.
Friday night was rough... TK Jr. refused to sleep. KG ended up getting next to no sleep, and was in a pretty bad mood the next day.
I started Saturday with an early morning trip to the laundromat. Got that out of the way ( but still not put away) and then headed to Malden for RB's BBQ. Good times, albiet short lived. I learned this much: extreme heat + dangerously sloped back yard + a 2 year old = very sweaty and overheated me. We only stayed a couple of hours. KG and I wisely decided in the future to get a sitter for such events.
We got home and got Jr into bed. Thankfully, the combination of no sleep the night before and all the running around he did at RB's really knocked him out. He slept right through the night and didn't wake up until 8 this morning!
We had another huge thunderstorm Saturday night. It started just as KG was getting the baby ready for bed. I went out onto our newly roofed porch to check it out. I was out there for a couple of minutes, when all of a sudden a lightning bolt hit the nextdoor neighbor's front lawn. It was insane! Thankfully I had taken a leak prior to going outside. If I hadn't, I surely would have pissed myself.
I had to unplug the TV, as the lightning continued to be intense for the next few hours. It finally died down, and I fell asleep on the couch watching Resident Evil 2. I woke up in the morning exhausted with a stiff back.
Then it was down to Brockton for Jr.'s second birthday party. My folks were away for his actual birthday, so they had a belated party today. We got another major T storm while we were there. It rained so hard the street flooded.
That ended, and we headed home. Got back to Weymouth, and there were downed branches everywhere, and all the traffic lights were out.
So, the last few weeks have been full of crazy storms. I love them, so I've been enjoying it. The heat I can do with out.
Tomorrow I start my day off trooping at the MOS. Tickets go on sale for the Star Wars exhibit, so we're doing a short promo. An hour in armor. Then back to work. Woohoo!

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Weymouth Zombie Patrol

It's the VNA's monthly menses... closing. Always a stressful time for me as management expects me to take all the mistakes everyone makes and fix them. And I do. Without fail. No one helps me, and I usually end up helping everyone else.
When I first got my position, I was the only one in my district. Now there are 2 of us. SW has 2 as well. So, doing the math, there are 4 people in my position. Which should mean equal responsibility. But I end up doing most of the work.
Today, I got a little ticked with my counterparts in SW, and sent a terse email. My exact words:
"Whoever keeps putting patient X on our error report, knock it off. He's a SW patient, it belongs to you."
Not very friendly, but not nasty either. And I spend the rest of the day eating shit because KC was upset by it. I even apologized, but she was too bent out of shape to accept it.
So, KC... I'm deeply sorry that my email offended you. Personally, I think you're too easily offended. So, to make myself feel better, try this on for size
"Fuck you, you lazy, spoiled, whiney bitch. Grow a spine and do your damn job."

Hmmm. Reminds me of the one time I decided to scream in my car while stuck in agonizing traffic. It didn't make me feel better. Only made me feel silly and hoarse.
So anyway... it's Kevin Bacon night on basic cable. Hollow Man is on one channel, and Quicksilver is on another. I'm watching Quicksilver. It's pretty amusing.
Today after work I met up with the Weymouth After Dark brothers to film a few scenes for their movie. They're doing a mockumentary on the Bridgewater Triangle, and I reprised my role as the founder of the Weymouth Zombie Patrol. Recruited to help search the Hockomock swamp for paranormal activity. It was fun. We substituted Whitman's Pond for the Hock, as it's close by and sufficiently creepy. We shot in the cemetary up the street from my house, and I think it went well. It was fun to do at any rate.
So, another night comes to an end. I was going to hit the sack, but I threw caution to the wind and had 2 ice coffees after work. I'm still wired, and I think it's time for some more car crashing.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Monday, August 08, 2005

Chew chew gum chew gum gum chew chew

Too busy crashing cars to say anything here....

Ack, bad form. I just edited a post.

Saturday, August 06, 2005

Multitasking

TK Jr. is away for the night, so KG and I play. Tonight, it was out to dinner at El Sarape. The Blanket. Really excellent authentic Mexican food tucked away in Weymouth Landing. Then home for beers and butts on the porch. KG dragged out the radio so we could spin a little Dark Side.
Me, I've been spending my evening going back and forth from the porch to the TV. Thanks to Names, I have a new addiction. We played BO3 the other night, and I haven't been able to get it out of my mind. So, I popped into Best Buy and picked it up.
Tomorrow is going to be spent cleaning. But today, we got a rare chance to just do nothing and enjoy it.
Well, I thought I had something more to say, but I'm hankering to cause some collisions.

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Shock and Awe

Well, we had a nice little reminder at 12:30 this morning of just how tough Mother nature can be. Now I'm a big fan of a good thunderstorm. The bigger the better. But this morning... that was a little scary. There was a solid twenty minutes where it felt like the storm was right over our house. Constant lightning... so much so that it stayed light out. The thunder was right on top of every bolt, and the house was actually shaking.
The house on Lake Shore Dr mentioned in the above link is a couple of streets over. I saw that bolt hit. Crazy stuff.
I'm still pretty charged up over it. I've been hankering for a decent storm for a loooong time now, and that certainly fit the bill.
Work has been funny so far this week. Not funny haha. Just funny odd. I've been insanely busy cleaning up mess after mess after mess. My error report is daunting. We switched our phone system over to a VoIP today... I'm hoping that went well. Tomorrow I have a conference call in the morning to try and figure out how to help SW with their error report. Of course I have suggestions... all of which I'm going to need to keep to myself.
I have to leave early tomorrow as well. Dentist appointment, woohoo. Then I have a follow up appointment on Thursday for my new meds. woohoo x 2.
At this moment, I really need to hit the sack. That was the plan last night. Go to bed early. That went to hell when I found out Battlestar was being rerun at 11. Then we had the storm, so it was 2AM before I was catching Zs.
So, time to try and be smart tonight. Pillow, here I come.