Nightmare Hall - Welcome to my nightmare

The mostly unexciting life and observations of an aging college educated Baby Boomer, military veteran, long term HIV survivor, friend of Bill W, amateur writer, techno-geek, seer, who sees clearly through all the BS, lies and corporate dogma. God help us all!

I have miles and miles of files,
Pretty files of your forefathers's fruit.
And now to suit our great computer,
You're magnetic ink...
-Moody Blues

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

I'm a PC

Well not exactly....I am a human being who owns a desktop and laptop PCs. Those I'm a PC Ads get tired very quickly, where Mr/Mrs Anybody USA is led into a store with a budget, they sniff briefly at the Mac, but immediately run to a windows PC, always a laptop, as one mother and her kid said in chorus "Oooohhh this one's got B-l-u-e R-a-y" as if they had discovered the holy grail.

Personally I'm not fond of laptops as a main machine, although I bought my 10 pound Gateway wide screen laptop 5 years ago when I was spending 80% of my time in Provincetown. They don't mak'em like they used to. My Gateway is built like a truck and weighs almost as much, so it sits on the coffee table connected to my flat screen TV.

I enjoy the net but don't feel I have to be connected to it 24x7 like the denizens I see behind the wheel and in coffee shops and eateries; at cafe tables, sitting on park benches, on buses and subways, at the beach, more and more people are rappa-tapping away at keyboards. It's almost as spooky as the multitudes of zombies texting and yakking on cell phones or playing video games, plus almost half of all people I see on the bus, subway or in cafes have ear buds sticking put of their ears, insulating them from the frightening real world.

As far as computers go, I prefer a nicely appointed desktop tower to a laptop as my main computer; more durable, expandable and easier to work on. The younger seem to go for something they can tuck in their pocket in the event they suffer a sudden need for a connection fix.....it's sad but fewer and fewer people actually spend most of their time in face to face communications.

Sure PCs and the net are fun. I get most of my news, information and amusement online, but I need to be out and about in the real world, filled with sunshine, rain and the world's ambient noise.

I was in a Newbury Comics store a while back chatting with one of the twenty something sales staff and was surprised when he said "I don't own a PC, cell phone or iPod. I don't need'em. I prefer vinyl records to CDs and older higher quality audio gear to the garbage that's being peddled as audio equipment." I told him he is indeed a rare breed for someone in his generation and he replied, "yeah tell me about it, plus I almost never watch TV and have little in common with many of my peers." He added he preferred doing things with friends, working out and playing his guitar to wasting time online. He also seemed to have a really good head on his shoulders as far as current events, what's really going on and who's pulling the strings goes.

I was watching a news clip where young adults were asked what they would do if there were no cell phones, Internet or cable. A coupled of 20- something young women exclaimed, "I would die. I could not survive without my cell phone and face book friends."

This is strange but humanity stumbled along fine for thousands of years without high tech gadgets. Imagine what ancient history would be like if they had all the modern gizmos we take for granted.

Moses ascended the mountain to meet with God. He was gone longer than the Jews expected, they got bored and began surfing porn and online shopping sites on the Internet. He descended carrying a nicely formatted PowerPoint presentation containing the 10 Commandments that God had given him and saw his people were surfing porn and online shopping sites, "I leave you people alone for a few hours and look what you're doing", tearing up the pages he was given, "God's printer jammed so we had to wait until it was fixed."

Or in the New Testament, "Paul's e-mail to the Romans", "Paul's first and second emails to Timothy" The first e-mail didn't get through so he sent a second.

Then there is Paul Revere's ride which instead was Paul Revere's instant messaging to every Middlesex city and town for the country folk to be up and take arms.

Back to the PC vs Mac religious war, which is variation of the VNS vs Beta or Ford vs Chevy wars, the Mac camp almost seems like a religious cult. I owned an iMac for about 9 months but wasn't all that wowed with it. When I bought it at the Apple store the same woman hugged me and said "welcome to the family". I would have asked her if they had any Kool Aid drinking ceremonies, but took my purchase and left. The Mac was OK, had great video but I just never felt comfortable with it, having been thoroughly brainwashed by the Wintel cartel. When I sold the iMac on Craigslist, I got almost what I paid for it, so it was almost like a free home trial.

I do agree with the Mac ads where a portly guy in business suit who looks suspiciously like Bill Gates debates with a slim young casually dressed guy....so guess who the PC is and who's the Mac. In the latest post Windows 7 release, PC says that we've fixed all the problems of past Windows. The Mac guy says something to the effect, "seems we've heard this before"

An old friend, ex coworker, talented SW engineer and housemate who I only hear from a couple of times a year put it this way, "I am totally free from the Microsoft Empire now. I installed Ubuntu Linux and will never go back." After a number of conversations with him I am tempted to sacrifice one of my PCs and convert to Linux.

I watch very little TV (can't tolerate the covert brainwashing, ads and swill that passes for entertainment). I've noticed a few major product groupings that seem to dominate TV ads; Pharmaceutical drugs, beer, narcissistic cosmetic products including hair replacement, furniture, cars and anything to do with connectivity; cell phones, cable TV and connected gadgets.

The furniture stores around here are all battling, offering from 42 to 65 inch flat screen TV's along with a Blue Ray player FREE (Ooooh blue ray) when you buy an 8 piece living room suite from their stores. The more you spend the bigger TV you get. If I buy just a foot stool or end table, can I get a 15" TV?

I'm also quite sick of the cable vs Verizon Fios ads where the cable guy is the last man on earth who still has cable. I'm equally sick of the Fios guys who knock on my door, always around dinner time, trying to sell me on the soul saving virtues of Fios phone, TV and Internet. And every time my response is the same "You again! Look I do NOT have Fios TV, do not want Fios TV and never will want Fios TV. I do not have cable for anything except Internet and am happy with my provider. I'm happy with rabbit ears and don't need 200 more channels of the same mind numbing programming."

Everyone is told they NEED that latest gadget in order to be whole. I like playing with the sales staff in big box stores like Best Buy considering long ago I worked part time in an high end audio store as well as Radio Shack.

I'll be looking at the hundreds of flat screen TV's and a sales person will ask if I'm looking for a TV and I tell them no already have a flat screen, to which they ask "how big? and is it 1080p" and I reply "32 and it's 1080i" to which I am told "Oh that is out of date, You need 1080p to fully appreciate true HDTV and Blue Ray."
And I tell them, "to these aging eyes, 32" is big enough plus I'd need a larger living room, and 1080i is fine as far as I'm concerned." I don't know if it's just me but have TV prices actually gone up.

It's the same with my main PC, a 4 year old Gateway tower with dual core processor and 4 GIG of RAM, and Creative Soundblaster Extreme-Fi and 128Meg video cards I added. Sure the bus speed is slower than the new PC's being sold now but it's no slouch. Time and again sales drones tell me how ancient my current PC is, except in stores like Micro Center where the real computer geeks work and shop.

Then there's all this iPod dock nonsense. Radios, stereos. surround sound systems, car stereos, hell even microwave ovens come equipped with iPod docks these days, as if everyone eventually will own an iPod. The sound from an iPod does not come close to the quality of the real source material but today audio specs do not matter. How about vibrating dildos with iPod docs. For a real thrill and earth shaking orgasm, play the 1812 Overture of tribal drumming music while using your new iPod ready dildo.

Every store that sells any sort of electronic gadget also sells electronic picture frames, for those with short attention spans who get bored looking at the same picture all the time. This is one of the last things I would consider giving as a gift.

How about a 12 step recovery group for electronic gadget addiction EGA.

posted by The Dreamer @ 4:30 PM   0 comments

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Bzzzt! Wrong answer

I went for a nerve conductivity test yesterday to hopefully sort out where to totally disabling pain is coming from in my right hand and arm. The first part of the tests, the doctor moves electrodes around in the areas in question and gives you a series of electric shocks, smaller increasing to jump of the table jolts. I don't know what struck me as funny but every time she shocked me I broke out laughing and had to regain my composure before the next round of shocks. I just kept thinking about a prisoner being tortured with electric shocks by his captors.

After the first round of tests she moved on to inserting acupuncture needles in various nerves and having me move the hand or flex it a certain way, making a racket of static in the speaker attached to the equipment. An equally unpleasant experience,m especially when the doctor has to dig around to find a good spot.

Anyway, after two hours of Guantanamo interrogation, the test was over and she claimed with almost total certainty, what I have is severe Carpal Tunnel compression on my right hand and moderate in the left. The next step is to meet with the specialist and my primary care to discuss treatment. From what I was told most like;y outpatient day surgery or steroid injections. This doesn't even address severe compression in my cervical and lumbar spine.

As if my life has not been in enough turmoil, two days ago my PC got infected with malware to end all malware. I'm usually very careful and have a couple of ideas where it may have come from. It started when a message kept popping up saying Windows could not find a certain DLL, which quickly expanded to hundreds of files. Norton Security kept popping up messages that it has blocks and attack. Whatever it was overwhelmed Norton which disappeared from the running tasks, then a window opened up claiming if I did not buy their anti malware software I would never get rid of the malware. My desktop turned into a neon pink and blue flashing mes and every icon I clicked on claimed to be a virus.

I checked running processes and saw that there was a large amount of network activity despite not doing anything. I pulled the Ethernet cable and whatever malware I was infected with knew this and shut the system down. Every time I tried to power up the system powered back down. I finally bit the big one and after a few tries got the system restore disk to reformat the disk and reload Windows XP Pro.

Luckily I keep all documents, movies, music, etc on 2 external drives that I keep offline unless I'm using them, so inly lost my email and favorites, but it was still a pain in the ass to take a day restoring the syustem and all applications.

posted by The Dreamer @ 4:24 PM   0 comments

Saturday, November 07, 2009

Rats in the main cable trunk

Rats have been gnawing away at the insulation in the main cable trunk and mice have built nests in the control console. Lights keep flickering on and off, there's a smell of burning insulation in the main lobby and power has been lost to the lower floors and basement.

That about sums up the state of my spine and nerves. I've been in unspeakable pain for over 2 months due to an undiagnosed nerve pinch in my right arm, which feels like the worst charlie horse I've ever had multiplied times 1000. I've been bounced between specialists, one claiming it smells like MS or polio, but then reversed his decision. The other specialist swears on her medical license it's either carpal tunnel or nerve pressure form the cervical spine, but I won't have a warm jello firm diagnosis until next week when I'm scheduled for a nerve conductivity test. I think they also use these tests as torture in Guantanamo. I've had two EMGs in the past and they are NOT pleasant by any stretch of the imagination.

One specialist suggested I try Methadone, my reply "what You want me to try synthetic heroin for pain management! I never have done drugs and am not about to become a heroin addict or drooling zombie to kill the pain. Why can't you people just fix the problem!" It seems Methadone is now a hot item for treating chronic intractable pain.......oh that's right the drug companies must have their profits, "profits before patients"....how silly of me to think that American medicine is in the business of curing/healing people. You keep them chronically miserable and willing customers of the multinational pharmaceutical drug cartel, a chronically ill patient insures a steady revenue stream. Of course as you grow older (as in once you begin getting junk mail from AARP) they consider healing old folks not financially profitable.

"We can perform the surgery and chances are he'll walk again."

"What's the alternative?"

"If we don't do surgery he'll wind up crippled."

"How much will surgery cost?"

"In total, about $60,000."

"How much for a wheelchair?"

"Around $200-300"

"We refuse to pay for the surgery but we will pay 50% for the wheelchair. He'll just have to cope with being a cripple."

I spent a couple of days visiting my friend Rob, who is also an unwilling victim of medical incompetence, facing a 5th hip replacement operation in a year due to doctors messing up the first one. And is anyone responsible?....hell no, shit happens and there's little recourse he has thanks to our elected and unelected officials protecting the elite, rich, corporate drones, etc at all costs from the angry masses. I've been encountering more and more people who have left hospitals in far worse shape than when they entered.

more later....

Some video and text links

posted by The Dreamer @ 4:43 PM   0 comments

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Maybe TV IS toxic

Something has happened to me over the past year or so that raises hell with my blood pressure. I first began noticing it about a year ago when I was living on a diet of Christian apocalyptic and tin foil helmet conspiracy news (those in the know, know that there is no conspiracy. The powers that be are right in the sheeple's faces, but nobody seems to notice or care).

A strange thing happens when my blood pressure gets into the red zone; the tinnitus in my ears becomes like a jet roar, my vision blurs and my throat and chest get tight. I normally have run low to normal 90/60 to 130/80, but in these isolated cases it shoots up to 160/90 to 220/130 and stays there. Now anxiety and stress jack it up, where they never did before. I have blood pressure medication but my doctor suggested I not use it regularly since pressure is usually normal, only when these spikes occur.

For some reason watching TV, anything longer than a half hour or so, gets my BP creeping up, up and away, even on shows that I enjoy like House MD, Bones, Fringe and the Simpsons the symptoms appear and if I check my BP it's very high. If I turn off the TV and read or go out for a walk, it drops back to normal. House, Bones and Fringe can get intense which studies have shown watching action or drama can elevate BP. I can't figure why the Simpsons have the same effect.

Watching YouTube and Google videos online, using my TV as a big monitor, doesn't seem to have the same effect, except a couple of nights ago when I watched Alex Jones's latest film "Fall of the Republic" which sent BP through the roof. Actually Alex's latest film is very well made and researched, a far cry from his early documentaries. Watching any major network news is almost certain to be stroke inducing.

There have been a number of worthwhile TV shows during the past decades, educational and informative programs, mostly on PBS, but one of my all time favorite classic network shows is the Twilight Zone. Rod Serling was a masterful story teller and his stories always had some sort of moral or gotcha to them.

About 3.5 years ago I gave away my old 27" Sony CRT set and got a 32" HD LCD TV.
I regularly chat on the phone with an online Christian friend from the Midwest and we usually get into long winded conversations about current events, NWO, technology and spiritual issues. She brought up a good point, maybe since the digital conversion there's more being broadcast than meets the eye and ear.

Maybe I've developed an allergy to TV, even PBS affects me now. Reading is also healthier for the brain. A neighborhood shop keeper told me about a great used and overstock book store in Burlington which I visited and came home with a bag full of books for under $10. A nice thing about books is they are recyclable. I either pass them on to others that might find them informative, donate them to the local library, senior center, AIDS drop in center, the leave a book take a book counter at a local market, trade them at a used book store after I've read them.

I also do a lot of reading online (there are thousands of talented writers online), but it's not the same as sitting back in my easy chair with a book. I can't sit there and read or concentrate as well staring at a screen as I scroll the text, despite the benefit of being able to change font face and size.

I can thank my mom for instilling in me a love of reading. I was a wee lad, 3 to 4 year old when my mother began taking me to the library with her (back in the early 50's). We didn't have much money and the TV only got turned on occasionally (3 channels all in glorious black and white) so Mom would check out books at the library to read. She once told me, "when you know how to read you're never alone. Books can take to amazing places. Reading is good for the mind." By the time I was in Kindergarten I was reading at a third grade reading level. Even in the Navy I passed idle time at the base or ship's library.

I found an interesting article in a Druid website outlining why TV is evil, 8 Reasons TV is Evil

A couple of TV links


Some other links

posted by The Dreamer @ 5:45 PM   0 comments

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Crash and bleed out

I have grown to dread hospitals and the medical industry in general "and it is an industry". Medical care has become a joke in this country, even in some of the best hospitals which are under staffed, over worked, unprepared and chaotic. Insurance and drug companies, plus other bean counters dictate what, when, how and who gets treated and who gets sent away. A lot of the under staffing and overworking of hospital and clinic staff comes from mandates in hospital admin (bean counters) and from HMO's and insurance companies.

Over the past 10 years I have been rushed to the ER more times than I'd like to remember. In all but one or two cases I sat in the waiting area for between 4 and 12 hours before I was seen seen....the result, no clear diagnosis, sent home with pain killers or antibiotics. Being a big city teaching hospital, the one my doctor is affiliated with is like a Chinese fire drill. When my doctor had forwarded tests he wanted them to run, in every case they ignored the request.

I've also noticed as the medical bean counters continually aim at zero cost, get rid of downsize registered nurses and hire people fresh of the banana boat who don't speak a word of English. I think their total training is how to take vitals, jabbing an orange with a hypodermic needle in preparation for jabbing live patients. In one case a woman (I think her name was Mugumba or something like that) came in to hook me up for an EKG, and just stood there like a deer in the headlights, not knowing where to attach the electrodes, mumbling something and looking very nervous. I looked at her and said, "give me the wires I'll do it myself" which I did. She left, returning with a real nurse who looked at the job and nodded 'good'. I told the nurse I was the one who hooked myself up. Mugumba left and I chatted with the nurse who said that they're squeezing every penny they can. She was just starting her 3rd shift, telling me she has not seen her own bed for 36 hours.

I don't know if it was coincidence, but 90% of the times I was rushed in to the ER was on a Friday or Saturday night under a full moon. A major hospital ER is very weird and chaotic on a weekend night during a full moon.

One Friday evening after I was taken into the maelstrom (the core) I had been laying on a gurney for a few hours waiting to be seen, listening to all the hustle and bustle going outside the drawn curtain that separated me from the corridor. A couple of cubicles down a man (sounding definitely drunk) was hollering "NURSE! NURSE! I NEED A DRINK! SOMEONE GET THE SNAKES OFF OF ME! NURSE NURSE!" Then I heard a loud crash and a commotion. Seems the dunk got up, pulling over the IV pole that he was connected to and was staggering around in the hall buck naked bumping into things.

During the same evening I heard another commotion when some guy drunk or stoned decided to take on the entire ER staff to spring his friend who he thought had waited way too long to be seen. They had to call security in.

In another cubicle I heard soft sobbing as a doctor came to a patient with the bad news.

As the evening wore on, there were random bursts of activity as stabbing, gunshot, car crash and other crises arrived by ambulance.

I have to say the doctors and nurses who work the ER probably put up with more BS in one evening than other people deal with in a year.

In some cases I left the ER in worse condition than I entered "next"

this is currently a placeholder
much more to follow......

Some links to read and watch while you sit in the ER waiting room

posted by The Dreamer @ 12:54 PM   0 comments

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Down for the count

There's a lot I have wanted to write about but...alas...my medical condition is sliding, especially the degenerative spinal/neural/muscle issues. I've been living with pain that only a Guantanamo tortured prisoner, spinal injury or cancer patient can appreciate. In the case of neurological conditions doctors claim there's not much they can do except sit an enjoy the show.

I have not "literally" slept for over 3 weeks (maube 15-30 minutes a night total) due to intractable nerve pain, so my keel isn't to even, nor is my mental state.

Strange but the thought has kept invading my mind that I won't be around next year, been sorting through my possessions and getting rid of a lot of stuff.

Here's a buncha fucking links.

posted by The Dreamer @ 6:17 PM   0 comments

Friday, September 25, 2009

Tweet Tweet Tweet

A bunch of short rant bursts

Although I have always been a big advocate of technology (hell knows I was a systems analyst for 30 years), the national and world obsession with having the latest gadgets borders on the neurotic. I carry a cell phone, It remains off and used only in emergencies, In general I find cell phones a dangerous nuisance like drunk drivers. And no, I don't have a facebook or myspace page, and "twitter?"...the perfect medium of communication for a society with the attention span of crack babies.

Yes there is a certified baby boomlet, especially among the upscale yuppies here. I was trying to walk along the sidewalk on Mass Ave in Cambridge, and ran into one baby stroller convoy after another; 3 to 4 across and 2-6 deep blocking the entire sidewalk, half the yuppie future soccer moms texting or yakking away on cell phones. It seems there are traffic jams of baby strollers everywhere in upscale towns; double wides, 4 seaters, double deckers and baby buses that seat 8-12 whining cabbage patch kids. I hope the 8-12 seaters are for day care centers. And they're not the austere strollers from my youth, but $700-$2000 plus jobs, tubular titanium and steel frames, roll bars, equipped with front and side air bags, climate controlled, flat screen dvd players with 5:1 surround sound, iPod docks, Wi-Fi ready.

When I was a wee lad, as soon as you were old enough to scamper around on your own, you got dumped from the stroller "hey you got legs kid, use'em." Some of the kids I see being chauffered around today look old enough to be in kindergarten or grade school.

Medical issues for me have been rapidly going downhill, which is one reason I seldom make entries in here, too numerous to go into detail over, plus the only two living friends I have are not doing well at all. To anyone reading this, if you are a US citizen and have never had any serious chronic medical problems....pray...PRAY as if your life depends on it that you never DO get sick in this once great but now God forsaken country, dedicated to the haves and have mores. The rest of us are tolerated and just cannon fodder along for the ride.

Another bizarre thing is my mental state if going South fast. I can't even watch a favorite TV show without my blood pressure spiking to 200-230/110 and out of nowhere anxiety attacks. Maybe TV is cumulatively toxic to people. The ads get more and more annoying and dominated by car, drug "ask your doctor" and telecommunications "who's in your fave 5" ads.

It seems watching TV is bad for your health in more ways then one. I was reading a couple of articles where test subjects were wired up while watching various TV shows. News, sports and shows with lots of action, violence, drama rose the viewer's blood pressure, sometimes to dangerous levels. This was especially evident in children, "50,000 people dropped dead from massive coronaries last Sunday during the Super Bowl." Now there would be an eye catching news headline. I bet the tinfoil helmet crowd would have a field day with that one, especially now that TV has gone digital.

I'm trying to read more but avoiding the heavy doom'n'gloom tinfoil helmet stuff, moving more toward George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Lewis Black, David Sedaris and other essayists and comedians. Reading a book does engage the brain much more than watching TV.

I can remember back in the 90's pundits proclaiming that the web would make libraries, book stores and reading traditional books obsolete. I actually read more books now as I find interesting book reviews and excerpts online that prompt me to go out and either buy a copy or borrow it from the local library. Every time I browse at Harvard Books, Harvard COOP or Barnes and Noble, the stores are usually very busy as are the checkout lines, but that's here in Boston/Cambridge so I can't comment on other parts of the country.

more to come...


Just a bunch of links

posted by The Dreamer @ 4:59 PM   0 comments