<snarl> I’ve had this KVM switch for maybe a month. The mouse port on it seems to have failed, since my trackball plugged into it isn’t being read by my computer but is if I plug it into a separate USB port. Which isn’t useful when I want to be able to use it on two different systems without having to plug and unplug things all the time.
Time to contact Amazon customer support, I suppose.
Yesterday, I had a rough morning. I was awoken by a cat claw to my boob when one of the cats decided to pounce and scare the other that was sleeping on me. Then I overslept my alarm on a morning shower day. In my rush to get showered and out the door for work, I didn’t secure my rings and one of my cats decided to try and EAT it. Husband and I spent the next 20 minutes lookin for it. I had a rush of joy as I watched the offending cat cough it back up but man if I wasn’t pissed for the rest of the day.
LavendarBlue, please help me refute this nonsense:
Will I do? 
That “study” was a survey of parents already identified as non-vaccinating. It’s biased sampling at its finest.
Here is a list of studies that show that vaccination is not associated with increased illness:
“Our study revealed that children who received vaccination against diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, HiB and poliomyelitis simultaneously within the third month of life do not exhibit enhanced frequencies of infectious disease-associated symptoms. In contrary, the frequencies of infection-associated symptoms were found to be significantly reduced. This might be caused by a vaccination-associated unspecific enhancement of immunological activity (e.g. mediated by interleukin 2) or by other presently still unknown factors.”
“Contrary to the premise, an apparent protective effect against invasive bacterial disease was detected after all childhood vaccinations. However, when adjustment was made for frequency of well-care visits and day-care attendance, no significant relationship was seen between receipt of routine childhood immunizations and risk of invasive heterologous bacterial disease for any individual vaccine, although a statistically significant protective effect was detected within 1 or 3 months after the receipt of any vaccine.”
“The rate of illness before immunization was 53%, and after immunization, 43%, again suggesting no causative effects from DTP immunization.”
“The results of this analysis provide no evidence for a causal relation between vaccination with the studied acellular pertussis vaccines and altered resistance to invasive disease caused by encapsulated bacteria.”
“Conclusion: Smallpox vaccination is associated with a reduced risk of infectious disease hospitalization in a high-income setting.”
“The prevalence of allergic diseases and non-specific infections in children and adolescents was not found to depend on vaccination status. ”
Further,
“In addition to atopic disorders, we further compared diseases—such as obstructive bronchitis, pneumonia and otitis media, heart disease, anemia, epilepsy, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)—in unvaccinated and vaccinated subjects. No relevant differences in the lifetime prevalences were found, neither for different age groups nor between girls and boys.”
http://www.aerzteblatt.de/pdf.asp?id=80869
"13,359 children who had received at least one vaccination and 94 children who had received not a single vaccination. For those keeping score, the percentage of completely unvaccinated children was 0.7%. The subjects came from children covered in the Kinder- und Jugendgesundheitssurvey (Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents) carried out between 2003 and 2006.
What they found was that the unvaccinated kids led in one important metric: they had significantly more pertussis, measles and mumps than the vaccinated kids.
As for allergic disease (atopy), asthma and susceptibility to “colds”, there was no significant difference between the two groups."
Just have to share some gems from the past two days with my mother-in-law, who is staying with us till tomorrow afternoon.
Her - So evidently there’s a new treatment for cancer.
Me - Oooh, awesome!
Her - Two tablespoons of pureed asparagus a day.
Me - . . . So, I bet it’s not really a “treatment” yet, probably just one small study or something.
Her - Oh, I don’t think there’s been an actual study. It’s been going around, like on Facebook. The guy who invented it is a biochemist!
Me - . . .
Her - they had six people who were inoperable, and they’re all now cancer-free. He’s doing it with his wife now too, for prevention. [and so on, giving details about how they take it, wondering why eating asparagus wouldn’t work as well, yet not twigging at all that it’s all BS, despite being a registered dietitian.]
:smack::smack::smack:
I overheard snippets as she talked to my dad about dealing with some bureaucracy, when this jumped out at me:
MIL: “And then you’ve got to deal with the lazy black people . . .”
:eek:
Me: It’s so weird to have this heat and humidity, and then read my Australian friends’ Facebook posts about how cold it is.
Her: Why is it so cold there?
My ten-year-old explained it to her.
I’m visiting Canada from the UK later this year and planning to drive from Vancouver to Calgary…anything else I should know so I don’t piss you off, in case you have found that car-mounted gun by then? 
My mini-rant today - the school across the road has a sports event on today, with a DJ. It is cruel and inhumane to play YMCA and Barbie Girl before 10am, especially when it’s loud enough that we can hear it across the street in our 5th floor office.
Machine guns spray too much stuff and leave whole cars in your path. I want the axle mounted 105mm Howitzer.
Well actually, I thought of something that would probably get me in a lot of trouble if I did it in real life. Like felony level trouble. Mounting a 1750mw laser under the hood of my car, pointed forward, low and level, through a small hole in the front. Toggle switch on the dash. Car shoots dangerously close across the front of you, flick the switch and carve a nice line down the side of their paint job. Prolly won’t notice it for a while. Of course, if it hit a person, it would hurt or even blind them.
DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME
Kolga, you rock! Thanks!
Of course you wouldn’t do it at home. You’d get caught too quickly. On a nice open road nearby, or on a long-distance drive, that’s when you’d do it…
Who’s doing the registering? Do the applicants have to jump through any hoops at all? (Question # 5: Pureed asparagus will cure cancer. A) True B) False C) No studies prove/disprove this)
Dear Wound Care Center MD:
It’s nice you put me on Prednisone in a attempt to beat back the things on my legs, but you should have mentioned that it would frack up my blood sugar to a fair-thee-well.
There was a sticker on the bottle saying it might change the readings.
However 472 in the morning is not a minor change.
To quote Starbuck: “Frack Me”
Yowza. I’d have to be mainlining pixie sticks to get that high.
Follow the rules of the road and we should be fine. I mean, the rules of the road here, not those wonky “drive on the wrong side of the road” rules you guys have.
And if you don’t stop in Calgary and let us buy you a beer, then we’ll have trouble! :eek:
Prednisone is made from pure, distilled evil. I blame all of my problems since 1991 on that stuff.
I’m emotionally drained by work. Also, I was diagnosed with an ear infection a little over a week ago, and even though I finished the course of antibiotics prescribed, it feels like there may still be fluid in my ear.
My husband had his annual blood work done this last week, so the doctor would refill his blood pressure meds. His cholesterol, et. al., is fine. However, his fasting blood sugar was 353. So, today he went to the doctor and they did his A1c. 13.1. Fuck.
He’s tripping out. I don’t blame him; I did when I got diagnosed a few years ago. But my A1c high is 7.3, and my sugars have never gone over ~280, ever.
I told him we’d be on the diet together (I’ve been trying to stick to my 1800 calorie diet), but I’m a little freaked out, too. I just don’t want him to know that.
So, here it is: fuck, fuckity fuck fuck, goddamn shit, fucking diabetes. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!!!
Easiest part of getting it under control for me was “See all that sugar you’re drinking? Done now. No more. See all those sugary snack foods? Limit them, severely. Dark Chocolate? Still your friend.”
That and not getting lulled in by things ignorant people try to tell you are great for ‘diets’, such as rice cakes, which are pretty much straight sugar as far as your body is concerned.
Speaking of Diabetes, this young Somali security guy came up on our floor today and kinda went out of it. They were calling him repeatedly and he wasn’t answering, or was giving only mildly coherent answers. Just outside my cube. They started looking for him. Building guy found him. Asked him several times how he was. Didn’t answer more than half the time. Grabbed his arm and led him over to a chair. I admit, from my Security background, I assumed the worst of him and figured he was on drugs. They called an ambulance, which arrived very quickly (HCMC is only about 5 blocks away). Looked him over and decided to test his blood sugar. 34. They got him a candy bar from the machine 15 feet away. Talked it over, called it in, decided to take him downstairs to let him recover in the lounge, but not to the hospital. Turns out he’s been diabetic for 6 years and this is the very first time he has experienced such a debilitating sugar crash.
Oh, and since I came in to rant, a serious FUCK YOU to the (literal) asshole who keeps getting on the bus home and farting the entire motherfucking ride home. This happens at least once a week. Letting 'silent but deadly’s rip about every 2-3 minutes. You’re incredibly rude and inconsiderate and you should fucking be ashamed of yourself. You should also seriously re-examine your diet.
And the bitch from the back of the bus who charged up past everyone to get off the bus when we pulled into the station, talking on your cellphone the whole time. FUCKING SELFISH PIG. Then charging back and forth in the station looking for your ride as everyone else got off the bus, nearly crashing into better than a half dozen people because apparently, you’re the only person in your universe. ASSHOLE. I hope that someday, you get seriously injured through your own selfish carelessness, and that you don’t hurt anyone else in the process.
I’ve been in orchestra pits with unusually gassy people. I say we should institute a “no farting in the orchestra pit” rule.