Saturday, October 14, 2006
The tube and other topics....
Ok, I think I've finally gotten to all the premiers of prime time tv shows, at least all the ones I care to see. I must say there has been a vast improvement over last year, when there were still too many reality shows. Or maybe it's just that I am a captive audience this year with nothing else to do.
Last night kicked off with "My Name Is Earl". I particularly liked this episode because I've thought for some time that Randy ought to have a girl friend. Unfortunately for him, he falls for a woman who enters her cat in contests, and Randy is allergic to cats. But she is so desperate to not be alone that she gives the cat to Earl so she can be with Randy. This is great until Randy figures out he has become a substitute for the cat and in fact is being treated as though he were a cat.
"The Office" was next. Michael's former manager dies in a gruesome freak accident. Michael's way of grieving is to go over every gory detail ad nauseum. He forces everyone to do a grief therapy session in which each person is to tell the story of someone they know who died. Three people in the office tell stories that are actually movie plots. Then Michael freaks out when he finds out a bird died in the parking lot. He makes everyone attend a funeral for it.
"Grey's Anatomy" I think is trying to send its viewers into sensory overload, the good kind though. Within the space of five seconds, McSteamy joins the staff of the hospital, Meredith begins vomiting and is asked if she is pregnant, and a patient on oxygen lights a cigarette and bursts into flame! Never a dull moment would be an understatement. Turns out Meredith is not pregnant but needs to have her appendix removed. While waiting for surgery, she is put on morphine, which makes her very chatty and honest with hilarious results. Christina finds out that Dr. Burke has an uncontrollable right hand tremor that could jeopardize his surgical career. George is dumped by Dr. Torres, who then propositions McSteamy in a bar. After Meredith's surgery, she proves what a moron she is by dumping the vet even though McDreamy has just dumped her. Why is it the good guys always lose? I'm seriously bummed about the prospect of Chris O'Donnell no longer being on the show. I just hope they show McSteamy nearly naked again. That would probably cheer me up, heh heh. The biggest shocker of the hour, though, is when Izzie finds out that Denny left her 8.7 MILLION! Wow!
Tonight, I had to choose between "Men in Trees" and a new game show. While I do like "Men in Trees" a lot, I LOVE game shows! And I figured "Men in Trees" would be more likely to re-run than "1 Versus 100", so I chose the game show (I don't have the ability to tape anything right now). "1 Versus 100" was created by the guys from "Deal or No Deal". Basically, a contestant competes against 100 celebrities and/or smart people. For instance, Ken Jennings of "Jeopardy" is part of the 100, also referred to as "the mob". Both the contestant and the mob answer a multiple choice question. The contestant must get it right, or they walk away with nothing. If the contestant is right, then they win a certain dollar amount for each member of the mob who gets it wrong. Each mob member who gives an incorrect answer is eliminated. The dollar amount per incorrect mob member answer goes up every time the contestant gets one right, and there are fewer mob members to compete against each time because of the eliminations. After every correct answer, the contestant has the option to take the money and go home, or risk all of it on the next question. The contestant does have two opportunities to ask for assistance from a mob member if they are uncertain on a question. The catch is that while the mob member must be honest about which answer they chose, they can lie about why they chose it. The first contestant went home with $135,000 which I thought was pretty impressive. I love to see people get rewarded for using their brain. I will make this part of my regular viewing.
In other news, I never did get the disability pension paperwork I was promised. I called the administrator again this week; again I got her voice mail. I left another message asking why I hadn't gotten the paperwork. Naturally, she hasn't bothered to call me back. I have half a mind to drive down there and stand in the office until someone tells me what the hell is going on.
Have been having trouble with the security system on the house. Keep getting false fault messages. Was told to change the batteries on the sensors, but when I talked to tech support about how to get the sensor open, they had no clue and said it would require a service call, which is a $35 charge. This pissed me off at first, but when the lady came out and changed all the batteries, the system still would not reset, so I did require her technical expertise after all. But then yesterday, I got another fault message on the window sensor! I was able to reset it after several tries. I need this damned thing to work since it's part of the inclusions on my house sale.
Got the sprinklers blown out on Wednesday. We got our first hard freeze that night, but now it's going to be 70 degrees during the day all weekend. I'm used to having Dan fill up a bucket and water the bushes and the tree by hand when we have warm streaks like that, but I guess I'll just have to let things dry out because I can't lift a bucket full of water by myself. I also need to rake the leaves off the yard and sweep the porch and driveway, but I've injured myself each time I've attempted to use the rake or the broom recently, so I guess I'll have to let that go too. It bugs me that I can't keep the yard looking nice for showings, but if I have to choose between overdoing it or staying functional, I'm gonna choose functional. After all, it looks as though I'm gonna be fending for myself all winter.
Am still awaiting the proper paperwork from the health insurance company authorizing me to fill my meds that aren't on their formulary. Got the denials for the Seasonale and the Lunesta, but nothing else yet. Need to get this resolved soon as I've got nine days' worth of Seasonale and about a week's worth of Lunesta left. I will be replacing them with generic Ortho Tri-cyclen and Ambien CR once I get the approval paperwork. I will be allowed to continue my Armour thyroid and Cytomel. I will have to switch to something other than Nexium for my reflux, and I think I have to go on the new generic for Mobic.
Got a letter from my LTD lawyer stating that my LTD insurance company is still refusing to provide records and asking if I could provide any. I called to let him know I have the reports for my functional capacity exam and my neuropsych exam. I also have copies of the original neuropsych evaluation from October 2004, my most recent sleep study, and the office notes from my primary care doc about my condition the day following the functional capacity exam. I am scanning all of this to send to him. He said that if this ends up going to court, the timeline on that would be about a year and a half. Ugh. He did mention a couple of good things, though. One is that he knows a psychologist who has extensive experience with chronic pain patients that can look over my neuropsych exam results. This psychologist also has developed a new personality exam specifically for people with chronic pain that doesn't lump physical complaints into depressive or somatoform disorders. The other good news is that Social Security will at last be adding Sjogren's syndrome to its Blue Book listings of disabling conditions. So when I receive a Continuing Disability Review in a few years, I will be able to refer to a specific listing that I meet rather than having to prove that the sum total of my ailments are disabling.
Can't type any more tonight.
Last night kicked off with "My Name Is Earl". I particularly liked this episode because I've thought for some time that Randy ought to have a girl friend. Unfortunately for him, he falls for a woman who enters her cat in contests, and Randy is allergic to cats. But she is so desperate to not be alone that she gives the cat to Earl so she can be with Randy. This is great until Randy figures out he has become a substitute for the cat and in fact is being treated as though he were a cat.
"The Office" was next. Michael's former manager dies in a gruesome freak accident. Michael's way of grieving is to go over every gory detail ad nauseum. He forces everyone to do a grief therapy session in which each person is to tell the story of someone they know who died. Three people in the office tell stories that are actually movie plots. Then Michael freaks out when he finds out a bird died in the parking lot. He makes everyone attend a funeral for it.
"Grey's Anatomy" I think is trying to send its viewers into sensory overload, the good kind though. Within the space of five seconds, McSteamy joins the staff of the hospital, Meredith begins vomiting and is asked if she is pregnant, and a patient on oxygen lights a cigarette and bursts into flame! Never a dull moment would be an understatement. Turns out Meredith is not pregnant but needs to have her appendix removed. While waiting for surgery, she is put on morphine, which makes her very chatty and honest with hilarious results. Christina finds out that Dr. Burke has an uncontrollable right hand tremor that could jeopardize his surgical career. George is dumped by Dr. Torres, who then propositions McSteamy in a bar. After Meredith's surgery, she proves what a moron she is by dumping the vet even though McDreamy has just dumped her. Why is it the good guys always lose? I'm seriously bummed about the prospect of Chris O'Donnell no longer being on the show. I just hope they show McSteamy nearly naked again. That would probably cheer me up, heh heh. The biggest shocker of the hour, though, is when Izzie finds out that Denny left her 8.7 MILLION! Wow!
Tonight, I had to choose between "Men in Trees" and a new game show. While I do like "Men in Trees" a lot, I LOVE game shows! And I figured "Men in Trees" would be more likely to re-run than "1 Versus 100", so I chose the game show (I don't have the ability to tape anything right now). "1 Versus 100" was created by the guys from "Deal or No Deal". Basically, a contestant competes against 100 celebrities and/or smart people. For instance, Ken Jennings of "Jeopardy" is part of the 100, also referred to as "the mob". Both the contestant and the mob answer a multiple choice question. The contestant must get it right, or they walk away with nothing. If the contestant is right, then they win a certain dollar amount for each member of the mob who gets it wrong. Each mob member who gives an incorrect answer is eliminated. The dollar amount per incorrect mob member answer goes up every time the contestant gets one right, and there are fewer mob members to compete against each time because of the eliminations. After every correct answer, the contestant has the option to take the money and go home, or risk all of it on the next question. The contestant does have two opportunities to ask for assistance from a mob member if they are uncertain on a question. The catch is that while the mob member must be honest about which answer they chose, they can lie about why they chose it. The first contestant went home with $135,000 which I thought was pretty impressive. I love to see people get rewarded for using their brain. I will make this part of my regular viewing.
In other news, I never did get the disability pension paperwork I was promised. I called the administrator again this week; again I got her voice mail. I left another message asking why I hadn't gotten the paperwork. Naturally, she hasn't bothered to call me back. I have half a mind to drive down there and stand in the office until someone tells me what the hell is going on.
Have been having trouble with the security system on the house. Keep getting false fault messages. Was told to change the batteries on the sensors, but when I talked to tech support about how to get the sensor open, they had no clue and said it would require a service call, which is a $35 charge. This pissed me off at first, but when the lady came out and changed all the batteries, the system still would not reset, so I did require her technical expertise after all. But then yesterday, I got another fault message on the window sensor! I was able to reset it after several tries. I need this damned thing to work since it's part of the inclusions on my house sale.
Got the sprinklers blown out on Wednesday. We got our first hard freeze that night, but now it's going to be 70 degrees during the day all weekend. I'm used to having Dan fill up a bucket and water the bushes and the tree by hand when we have warm streaks like that, but I guess I'll just have to let things dry out because I can't lift a bucket full of water by myself. I also need to rake the leaves off the yard and sweep the porch and driveway, but I've injured myself each time I've attempted to use the rake or the broom recently, so I guess I'll have to let that go too. It bugs me that I can't keep the yard looking nice for showings, but if I have to choose between overdoing it or staying functional, I'm gonna choose functional. After all, it looks as though I'm gonna be fending for myself all winter.
Am still awaiting the proper paperwork from the health insurance company authorizing me to fill my meds that aren't on their formulary. Got the denials for the Seasonale and the Lunesta, but nothing else yet. Need to get this resolved soon as I've got nine days' worth of Seasonale and about a week's worth of Lunesta left. I will be replacing them with generic Ortho Tri-cyclen and Ambien CR once I get the approval paperwork. I will be allowed to continue my Armour thyroid and Cytomel. I will have to switch to something other than Nexium for my reflux, and I think I have to go on the new generic for Mobic.
Got a letter from my LTD lawyer stating that my LTD insurance company is still refusing to provide records and asking if I could provide any. I called to let him know I have the reports for my functional capacity exam and my neuropsych exam. I also have copies of the original neuropsych evaluation from October 2004, my most recent sleep study, and the office notes from my primary care doc about my condition the day following the functional capacity exam. I am scanning all of this to send to him. He said that if this ends up going to court, the timeline on that would be about a year and a half. Ugh. He did mention a couple of good things, though. One is that he knows a psychologist who has extensive experience with chronic pain patients that can look over my neuropsych exam results. This psychologist also has developed a new personality exam specifically for people with chronic pain that doesn't lump physical complaints into depressive or somatoform disorders. The other good news is that Social Security will at last be adding Sjogren's syndrome to its Blue Book listings of disabling conditions. So when I receive a Continuing Disability Review in a few years, I will be able to refer to a specific listing that I meet rather than having to prove that the sum total of my ailments are disabling.
Can't type any more tonight.
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