Rheumatoid Arthritis: Symptoms, Causes and Diagnosis

this is very cool. if you'd like to know more about rheumatoid arthritis, but don't want to listen to me lecture about it, check this out.

this past weekend was supercon, in austin minnesota. we were in a new hotel, in a new city this year. the hotel was the americinn of austin, and it was clean and pleasant and all the things you hope for in a hotel. we had an almost unblemished hotel experience. (one front desk person wasn't used to large groups. this is significantly better than average.)

the hottub was enormous, and i spent a bit of saturday evening in it. there was much gaming in the lobby and in the programming room. i wandered between the lobby and the consuite, and talked to people, rubbed a few shoulders, crochetted like a madwoman... my convention usual. charles and ish had voted, and i was designated drunk for the convention out of the three of us. woo!

it was little m.'s first convention. he thinks conventions have too many people. way too many. dear god, the people. but i'm certain in a few years he'll like them better. (i mean, being past his first birthday will probably help...)

i am sooo far behind.

between christmas and new years, we went to new york for nathan's cousin's wedding. i had been under the impression that this cousin was one of the few liberal ones in his family. ha. i was apparently soooooo wrong.

good things: the church was very pretty, although very small. the decorations in the church were nice. the outfits of the bride, groom, and attendants were very nice, and everyone looked good in them. the weather was gorgeous. i like that neighborhood of new york.

okay things: it was sort of anthropologically interesting, watching the ceremonies of a people who are not my people, who believe things that i do not believe. plus, i got to see a very high church missouri synod service. much like a high church episcopal service, only smaller, and the liturgical music (how can i put this delicately) sucks. also, the reception was in a school gym, which is not the best location in the world, but it was very pretty, for what they had to work with.

bad things: lms liturgical music. did i mention that part? it being mentioned to us by various relatives how happy they were that cousin was having a church wedding, and that it was soooo important to them. the sermon, which started out personally offensive, got another dig in, and then went straight to total cheesiness. (dig against gay marriage, continued digs against civil ceremonies, and then uber-cheesiness about how menage a trois (him, her, and jesus) were the best kind of marriages.)

cheesy *and* tacky, that sermon.

Slouching toward Big Brother By Bruce Schneier | CNET News.com:

When you put the police in charge of security, the trade-offs they make result in measures that resemble a police state.
This is wrong. The trade-offs are larger than the FBI or the Justice Department. Just as a company would never put a single department in charge of its own budget, someone above the narrow perspective of the Justice Department needs to be balancing the country's needs and making decisions about these security trade-offs.
The laws limiting police power were put in place to protect us from police abuse. Privacy protects us from threats by government, corporations and individuals. And the greatest strength of our nation comes from our freedoms, our openness, our liberties and our system of justice. Ben Franklin once said: 'Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.' Since the events of Sept. 11 Americans have squandered an enormous amount of liberty, and we didn't even get any temporary safety in return.

Your Discordian Totem Animal is Denny The Echidna
of Justice. There is no proof of justice in the
world like the spiney milkiness of the Echidna.


Your Discordian Totem
brought to you by Quizilla

Electrolite: State of the union.:

a quote, from stefanie commenting at electrolite about this article.

And as long as we're discussing entities who take advantage of government largesse, let's point our fingers in the right place: Ms. Payne is living in state-subsidized housing and getting health care through Medicaid while she is *working* as a cashier. That means that taxpayer money is going to *subsidize the substandard wages of that bloody store*, which otherwise would have to pay its employees enough to pay rent, have health care, and buy food. We are not subsidizing Ms. Payne, we are subsidizing Wal-Mart.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Powell casts doubt on Iraq WMDs:

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has conceded that Iraq may not have possessed any stocks of weapons of mass destruction before the war last year.

i hope this isn't a surprise to you.

Visited Countries: "

create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide"

it's been a long weekend. long long long.

friday afternoon, nathan got home from work and i dropped him off at the airport to go visit joanna. i was driving around trying to figure out where i'd like to have dinner, when kerry called and said that we should do dinner together. this was a fine fine idea. we ate at lake street garage, which is one of my favorite "i don't know; where do *you* want to go?" places. good burgers and malts. mmm. anyhow. dinner and conversation, and then i had to head home because i was expecting heidi over for a drinking and bitching session. so there i was, driving down my street towards the house, and i see a small black shape dart out from the other side of the street. i have enough time to think "oh, they (the car in front of me) will have to swerve..." and then it doesn't. and it hits the cat. and the cat is thrown a foot or two, just barely out of the lane of traffic.

i hit my brakes and pulled off to the side of the road and hit my hazard lights so that people would know there was something going on here, and got out to check on it. the cat was flopping around as i got up to it, and i said "hello kitty it's okay kitty it's okay", and it died. i rolled it over, so it was out of the edge of the traffic lane, and cried. and cried and cried and cried.

i called abby, and fortunately she was at home, and she drove the few blocks up to where i was, with a box and some old towels. (it was bad enough that no one loved this cat enough to keep it indoors, even though someone appeared to love it enough to feed it. it was bad enough that the jerk in the car ahead of me didn't even slow down, when that would have kept him from hitting the cat. i was *not* going to leave it on the street to rot.)

while i was waiting, a nice woman in a minivan pulled up behind me to check to see that i was alright. i told her that i was fine and my car was fine but that someone had hit and killed a cat. it was very nice of her to stop and ask.

i also called sig's partner, j, because i figured that if i knew anyone local who would know what to do with a dead cat, she would. i was right.

so, abby got there, and i wrapped the cat in the towels and put it in the box, and then we put it in my car and took it back to the house, to stay on the front porch overnight. abby found some tape so that we could tape the box shut, and a marker so that i could write on the box. i wrote "this is midnight the stray cat who was hit by a car. i named him." on it.

abby and aaron helped me carry my groceries upstairs from the front porch, and then came and sat with me until heidi got there. abby is a hero of the revolution, and aaron is a minor hero of the revolution. (minor only because he did not directly have to deal with any dead cats.)

then the evening started improving; heidi got there and brought a very nice bottle of cheap sweet red wine, and we gossipped about many many people, complained about work, and drank half a bottle of wine each. this was very pleasing. i had to send her home earlier than i'd planned, because after a while my eyes stopped focussing.

the next morning, i took the cat in his box to our vet, who are taking care of disposing of the body. they were very nice.

there was more to the longness of the weekend, but that was the most trying bit, and it's one am and i need to go to bed now.

courtesy of my sister. (blame her, not me!)

Where do generals keep their armadillos? In their sleevadillos!

why betsy hates appliances.com with a fiery passion, by me.

so, beginning of december, nathan, wonderful person that he is, spoke with appliances.com and ordered me a dishwasher for christmas. he ordered it because appliances.com said they had one in stock, and the local places didn't seem to have one.

time passes. (um, two and a half weeks?)

eventually, two burly men show up and lug a dishwasher into the house. betsy does the happy happy dance. nathan gets home from work and opens the box. much sadness ensues as somewhere along the line, someone was not as burly as they thought they were dropped it on the front corner, meaning that the door won't open on it. oh, the sadness. oh, the unusable dishwasher taking up space in the living room.

betsy calls appliances.com. no problem! they say. do you want a refund or a replacement? they say. betsy, thinking favorably about the human race in general, a mistake she will never make again, says oh, a replacement! that will be swell!

time passes.

more time passes.

nathan calls appliances.com in the beginning of january, a month after our saga started. oh! they say. there's one at the factory now just waiting to be sent to us! they were back ordered but now one is on it's little way! soon you will hear about delivery!

time passes.

betsy calls on monday, and talks to a little man who i bet had help getting dressed that morning named jayce. jayce! she says. where is my dishwasher! she says. jayce says uh, you got it. no, no! cries betsy. the new, non-broken dishwasher! uh, there are no notes in your file about anything like that, says jayce. i will leave a message for customer service and they will call you back within 48 hours. well, all right, says peevish betsy.

time passes. about 72 hours worth.

betsy, extra peevish, calls appliances.com and talks to someone. conveniently, customer service has gone to lunch. betsy, summoning up her not-yelling-reserves, leaves a message for a callback and sends customer service an email.

after lunch, betsy calls back and talks to shelly, in customer service. shelly tries to get things rolling to send out a new dishwasher, because oddly, there's no record of anything. when pressed, shelly admits that there is no new dishwasher on the way yet. betsy thinks impolite things and mentions that she'd rather, at this point, have a refund. shelly says that as soon as they get the dishwasher back, a refund will be issued. then there was some tenseness and some discussion about disputing the credit card charges, but currently, appliances.com has been given a week to get their head out of their ass and send someone to pick up the dishwasher and issue the refund.

betsy is about to make michael at warner stellian in south minneapolis a very happy man with a special order. a very happy man.

(one happy customer tells someone. maybe. if you're lucky. one unhappy customer posts about it on her blog.)

i don't personally belong to a union. but i think they're a good idea anyway.

Paul Krugman: The credentials of Bush critics keep getting better and better COMMENTARY: THE AWFUL TRUTH:

People are saying terrible things about George Bush. They say that his officials weren't sincere about pledges to balance the budget. They say that planning for an invasion of Iraq began seven months before 9/11, that there was never any good evidence that Iraq was a threat and that the war actually undermined the fight against terrorism.
But these irrational Bush haters are body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freaks who should go back where they came from: the executive offices of Alcoa, and the halls of the Army War College.

Kathryn Cramer: Comparing Bush to Hitler:

Hitler was Hitler for decades before killing millions. If we learned anything from the Nazi era it should be to stop fascism before it gain control. Many of those comparing Bush to Hitler are not simply out to defame him, but rather want to halt America's emergent fascism.

everyone does the best they know how. everyone works towards the goals of what they think is best for the people they care about.

that doesn't mean that i have to respect their efforts, think they're not misguided, or even, even, think that they are accomplishing good, not evil.

there are things that i find more physically uncomfortable than discussing politics with my mother. most of them involve someone jabbing at me with something sharp, however.

in other news, josie grabbed a book of the shelf and ate it this morning. we have not yet made her into a lap rug, but we are crating her whenever we're gone. this wouldn't have helped this morning, as we were both actually home. grrr. pesky dog.

nathan is watching the old version of the italian job, and i am also sitting on the sofa. i like the new version better, as it contained actors that i recognized (besides michael caine) and therefore could tell apart. telling actors apart is not one of my strongest skills.

abby is finally feeling a bit better. whew. life is less fun when she is sickly.

brisingamen: You see, the trouble is, I'm not actually American ...:

This morning's gem of logic comes from the man who acts as the spokesman for government affairs for the US travel industry.

He explained sweetly on Radio 4 that once visitors to the US understood that being photographed and fingerprinted was to ensure the safety of the American people as well as their own, they'd understand and cooperate. Oh, well, that's okay, now you put it like that. Silly me for not understanding.


But here, in a nutshell, Mr Government Affairs Spokesman, is my problem with this whole thing. Lots of people reading this journal are Americans; I know many of them on a personal basis, love some of them dearly, and certainly bear no malice towards anyone else. But you see, the way my life runs, the security of the American people, even those I know and love, is not a constant and present consideration. I don't get up in the morning and think 'gee, what can I personally do to improve the security of the American people today.' Yes, I think about it from time to time, and seriously, but honestly it figures fairly low on my daily agenda.

go read the rest of it, 'kay?

micropiglet alert!

well, this won't be up forever.

AP Kills Limbaugh Painkillers Story (washingtonpost.com):

AP Kills Limbaugh Painkillers Story

The Associated Press
Saturday, January 3, 2004; 5:06 PM
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Please kill the story Limbaugh-Painkillers, V9991. Rush Limbaugh has not been charged with doctor shopping.



A kill is mandatory.
Make certain the story is not used.

x e n e y d o t c o m:

It might seem to you, as it seems to Jeremy, that I am an insanely uptight control freak. But I'm not, or at least, it's not in my basic nature. I am a giant flake at heart. I think even Jeremy knows this. At heart, I am the kind of woman who could happily sit on my couch for a year or two, playing with my hair and staring at the ceiling. And I would happily go along in my flaky fashion, never worrying about whether the rent got paid or the passport got ordered, except for the one big fat flaw in that plan, which is that the rest of the world is way flakier than I have ever dreamed of being. It's not like you all would be rushing to pay the rent while I played with my hair, right? Somebody has to be in charge of getting things done, and more importantly, someone has to be in charge of all the freaking out that makes other people get things done.
It's a dirty, shitty-ass job, but apparently it is mine.

apparently, xeney is my secret twin. hurray!

an exciting week so far. and not so much in a good way, either.

josie ate a book cover. grrr. our hope is that it fell off the shelf first, because if she's pulling things off the shelf to eat, we will have to crate her when we're not home. this would suck.

the entire family spent the evening at fairview southdale emergency room on sunday night, because abby is sick; they sent her home with painkillers and instructions for antinausea meds, and tuesday morning we're off to see her regular doctor. per the emergency room doctor, this looks to be no fun for slightly over a week (most of which she's already through, thank goodness) and then as long as she stays hydrated and can manage to sleep with the painkillers, it should be all fine.

other than that, the play was fine. er, i mean, the week's been going okay.

memories of new york:

sitting in the cab, muttering about why did they even bother giving driving directions to the wedding to out of towners.

on the subway, watching the two chinese(?) women across from me and the baby on their laps, and the three french speakers who came in and ended up standing by them. the two french women talked to each other in french about the baby, and to the chinese women in english about the baby. much gurgling about baby cuteness went on, i think in three languages.

walking all over times square with nathan and watching him be google eyed at it. (i was google eyed in october.)

the subway station ceramics and terra cotta. being able to point at pictures in the books that i got for christmas and say "i was there!"

people watching. all over.

JON CARROLL: why i'm voting for howard dean.

Yes, the dangerous radical who threatens our very way of life is the last in a long line of zany socialistic Vermont governors. They're almost Canadian. Leftie Dean cut state income twice and cut the state sales tax entirely, and increased prison terms for felons.
He is also, of course, opposed to an unprovoked invasion of a foreign country. He is opposed to lying about the reasons for the attack. This used to be an honorable opinion.

so. christmas.

we had christmas eve over at my parents house last week. brought both dogs, who were mostly very well behaved. they didn't eat anything inappropriate, and they didn't break anything. whew. we left pirate there for the weekend, so she could play with coco while we were gone. i got many cool things, and i managed to get a few things for my family that were right on. yay! back home for the evening, with the josie dog. josie was very confused about why pirate wasn't with us.

christmas day, off to nathan's parents, in austin. everyone showed up; parents, older sister, younger sister, brother, sister-in-law, two nephews, three dogs, two cats. whew. the whole bunch of us had a good time. i vetoed getting pizza for dinner on the grounds that last time i'd had that pizza i had stomach flu right after. no good! lots of good sitting around and talking, and i crochetted a bunch. nearly done with k's afghan. whew!

in the morning, josie and nathan went off to the vet where josie was going to be staying the weekend. josie was a bit scared, but was a total trooper over the weekend, apparently. very happy to see me and my snausages on monday afternoon, however.

more about the weekend in new york city shortly.