My root canal this morning went pretty well. If you want the enthralling details, I present to you a run-down of what they did, along with relative pain rankings, “N” being no pain, and a scale of “!” ( for a bit of wincing pain ) to “!!!!!” ( for excruciating, unbearable pain).
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Last week when Apple released some new products at the MacWorld Expo, I briefly mentioned them in a blog post, but didn’t make much commentary. I usually find that I don’t have the time to write a well-thought-out commentary on such things, and I’m particularly unmotivated to do so when other people have already said what I’m thinking, only better. So I just refer you to ***John Gruber|http://daringfireball.net/***’s excellent article, ***Small, Cheap, and Without a Display|http://daringfireball.net/2005/01/small_cheap_no_display***.
Beyond that, my personal opinions:
I like the Mac Mini. The base model is almost three times faster than the fastest Mac I own (a PowerMac G4 450 MHz), has superior graphics and networking capabilities, and has a miniscule form factor. If I was in the market for a new machine, that would be my choice. I don’t need the speed of a G5, nor the expandability that a tower offers. With USB and FireWire Connectivity, I’d be pretty much good to go. I’d probably want to upgrade the memory, which officially has to be done by an Apple authorized repair center, but can most likely be unofficially done by customers, as long as they are comfortable with taking machines apart. Having already disassembled many regular Macs, as well as my own PowerBook, I’d probably be comfortable enough doing it.
I think the iPod shuffle is cool. It’s not for me, because I could never stand not having a display to look at, or not having the ability to navigate to exactly the song I want to listen to. But I think it might be the right thing for some people… and, hopefully, lots of people.
At my regularly scheduled dental exam last week, my dentist told me that I had several cavities. 🙁 I’ve had several cavities filled in recent years, so this wasn’t a huge surprise. But one of the cavities was larger and it was right beside my dental implants austin, and he said that it might require a root canal. The dentist recommended that I go to the toothsayer, and purchase a water flosser to help clean my gums better.
Well, today I went in to get one of the small cavities filled and have the larger cavity examined. The dentist found that it did, in fact require a root canal. So this Wednesday morning, I’m headed to the dentist to get a ***root canal|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_canal***. From the fairly extensive reading I have already done on the subject, the procedure is apparently nowhere near as bad as the reputation it has garnered over the years. I won’t bore you with the medical details of the procedure; you can read about it at the link above. Suffice to say, as long as I’ve got a few good shots of novocaine in my jaw, it is supposed to be no worse then getting a regular cavity filled.
Other than the root canal, there aren’t any other good options – I could have the tooth pulled, but that would introduce a host of other issues, or I could just do nothing at all, in which case the tooth would infect the surrounding tissues and I would be in really bad shape. So a root canal it is. The procedure on Wednesday is the first of three parts, where the root canal itself is cleaned out and filled temporarily. The second and third procedures will be scheduled later, where a permanent filling, post, and crown are put into place on the tooth. I can entrust it to real professionals from https://www.maestrosmiles.com/.
The cost of the procedure, I think, will be the post painful part. Usually when I am finished with a dentist appointment with Delaney Park Dental services, I stand at the counter and settle the bill with the account manager. This time, however, the account manager led me to a desk with chairs around the corner from the main reception area. She sat me down and then broke the news to me. Yikes. I’m not going to say how much, but it is definitely a pricey procedure. Thankfully, I was able to set up a payment plan which will enable me to get the procedure right away, but allow me to break up the big payment into smaller, more manageable, and interest-free payments.
[ To answer the questions you may have: 1) yes, I brush my teeth daily 2) yes, I floss… every so often 3) yes, I will be doing both 1 and 2 even more frequently now than I have in the past 4) yes, the dentist will also be filling in a gap in my molars which was causing junk to build up, and which I could not have easily cleaned out on my own ]
Source: Wahroonga Dental Group in Hornsby.
I got a new hat today:
ppp||ppp
I like it. Becky likes it too, even though she didn’t make it. Do you like it?
Everyone at the office ordered out for Chinese on Friday, from China Corner in Peabody. I got the roast pork lo mein lunch special, which came with a generous helping of pork fried rice and a spring roll. This massive serving of food, which I estimated weighed about 1.5 pounds, cost only $4.50 and was quite delicious. I believe China Corner nearly beats out [Taco Bell](http://www.tacobell.com/) at the price per pound game.
Last night, Becky and I had planned to see ***In Good Company|http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385267/*** using the $5.50 Loews movie vouchers I can get at work. Everything was looking great until I got to the counter and found out that I couldn’t use them. Why? Apparently, I had been duped by the Loews website. They indicated that the release date was December 31, 2004, well beyond the 10-days-old requirement for using the vouchers. However, this was the limited release date, and the movie had, in fact, been released nationwide just a few days ago. Drat.
So, we instead went to see another movie we’d been wanting to see for a while, ***The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou|http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362270/***. This fabulous, hilarious film starred Bill Murray as the revenge-driven sea explorer Steve Zissou, searching for a mythical jaguar shark that killed his friend, Esteban. From Jeff Goldblum’s performance as the eccentric millionaire sea explorer Alistair Hennessey, to Willem Dafoe’s pouty German underling Klaus Daimler, the movie was a riot. Becky and I were cracking up in almost every scene at the absurdity of the movie’s plot and characters, from the “research dolphins” which apparently can neither hear nor understand the crew’s commands, to the eight unpaid research interns from the “University of North Alaska”… simply a great film.
For those who are familiar with ***Buckaroo Banzai|http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086856/***, there are a few significant links between the movies, one of which is the presence of Jeff Goldblum as an eccentric outsider. The other one I’ll let you discover for yourself… it’s a real treat. 🙂 I don’t know of any other direct links, but in general I couldn’t help but think about how similar (and wonderful) the two movies were. I already own B.B. on DVD, and L.A. will certainly be going on my wishlist as well.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou gets four flippers up from The Woods!
…to a few new features/links/tweaks that we’ve added recently?
Enjoy the new features, and let us know what you think!
Our good friends, Jeremy and Angela, now have a blog of their very own! They have been tending it for a month or so now, cleaning it up and making it look nice, and now they are ready to be linked!
So, we’ve added them to our links list. Feel free to hop on over there sometimes and check out their site. They have a great photo gallery, cute entries and a whole lot of puns! Enjoy!
In other news, I’d like to point out all of the ‘Js’ that we have listed in our Links List. With the addition of Jeremy and Angela the total comes up to 11. I really shouldn’t be surprised. While in college most of my closest friends had names that started with J: Jennifer, Jill, Joanna, Joylene… Strange Coincidence, no?
**note** This post is dedicated to Kristina Wilson. And if she ever reads this blog entry she’ll know exactly why!**
There is a man who rides the same train in to Boston that I do. Frequently he wears a pair of bright red Converse All*Star sneakers. I’ve noticed them because of their redness, the fact that I love wearing my Converse sneaks, and because they are a sharp contrast to his otherwise “corporate casual” attire. He seems pretty comfortable with looking a bit different.
Today, I was in for a shock as I noticed that on his left foot he was wearing his usual red sneaker and on his right foot…an identical sneaker, only in BRIGHT BLUE!
This has led me to wonder, “Did he do that on purpose?” Well, his feet did look very patriotic, so it could have been a concious choice. Or, “Did he put his shoes on in the dark?” A logical answer to the mis-matched shoe phenomena.
As neither shoe particularly “coordinated” wtih his outfit, I am led to believe that either choice above could be considered the ‘right’ choice. This will probably continue to baffle me until something more interesting comes along 🙂