progress?



well, i was supposed to do an update on the symtoms 5 days ago. i kinda held back cause i didn't improve as much as i was hoping to. but let's see if it has.

just so i don't forget, my current symptoms are:



2 weeks ago:

inability to sit without slouching. and doing so causes my spine to really stay curved until i lie down on a flat surface for a long time.

now:

this actually has improved yesterday believe it or not. i feel like i can finally start to put some weight on my back, even though it is still very uncomfortable, its not impossible to do. so it has definitely improved.



2 weeks ago:

discomfort on the right hip, pain ranging from 0 to 5 lying down.

now:

discomfort on the right hip. but more localized pain. it usually always hurts, so i gotta say 1 to 4. hurts more than 0, but not as bad as 5.



2 weeks ago:

pain on the right leg, ranging from 1 to 3 lying down.

now:

this has not changed. there was a time when the pain in the right leg was 0 to 1. its back to 1 to 3.



2 weeks ago:

inability to completely stand up straight.

now:

still have this, and i'm not sure if i have improved too much. i have my good days and bad. even on good days, i'm still hunched over. but i've notice i don't leave to the side much at all anymore. so small improvement here.



2 weeks ago:

all levels of pain raise up 3 numbers higher when the medication is wearing off (about the 7th hour).

now:

it goes up 1 or 2. so improment here as well.



2 weeks ago:

pain while driving is about 2 to 6 depending on duration and how long i've been outside.

now

pain while driving is actually 1 to 3. so big improvment here.





so improvements almost across the board. i'll update on the recovery again in about 1 to 2 weeks.



tihs weekend saw hero with a bunch of people. it was like crouching tiger meets the matrix. on monday, my parents and sister came over, they all cleaned all day, so my place is actually really clean now. they also did my laundry so that is going to help me considerably.

not much going on. started working from home and that seems to be working out. i'm getting good amount of work done. pros and cons about working at home. pros are that you can basically wake up and you can clock in. watch tv and take power naps for breaks. and clock out with no traffic to worry about. the cons are, as much as work is a anti-fun environment, it is still a social gathering. you can joke around and go to work with coworkers. something i'd trade all the positives about working at home in a heart beat. on the bright side, at least there are positives rather than just the negatives.



so ruben won. but by a mere 1000 votes (out of 24 million+ votes). so that means there's a 0.004% difference in the voting. and it's not a good reflection at all. it's not like a election where every vote gets counted. for every 1 vote, i bet there are 10's maybe even 100's of votes that never went through. i tried calling bunch of times, could never break through. so i say it could have gone either way. internally, it looks like they are treating it like a tie. i'm sure we'll see both ruben and clay being promoted on american idol 3 the same amount. maybe ruben just slightly more because he is the official winner.



just finished watching better luck tomrorow and animatrix. better luck tomorrow was good. it reminded me a lot of my senior year. the shooting the shit till whee hours in the morning not caring about real life stuff, just school/college stuff. every time i watch these movies, i wish i could have done things differently. like the SAT score. if i put my mind to it, i could have totally memorized all the vocab words they used (there is a limited set) and aimed for a 1600. just didn't occur to me at the time. and college, man, what i would give to be a freshman again. is that possible? to be an undergraduate twice? but who am i kidding. i don't have that kind of money to put myself through school again, and i ain't getting younger. i need to worry about real life things like career, house, and a family.

they must have no story writing schools in canada



i feel like i have to vent my frustrations about the horrible season finale the writers of smallville have dealt to us. first let me say i am a big fan of smallville. i love the characters. i love the clever ideas they've come up with to fit smallville's story line fit with the original story of superman. what i am not a big fan of is the writing. the season finale just how untalented some of the writers on that show. where do i start? well, for starters, what season finales are supposed to be about are big things getting resolved that developed throughout the season. and to bring back viewers, you can introduce a new plot you can build on so that the viewers will long for and can't wait to see it develop next season. but what wb gave us was, they left us with nothing being resolved, and to top it off, they cut it right at the darkest moment of the whole story line. we were left with a lot of anticipation not longing for the show.



let me give you an analogy. say there is a candy sales man (wb), and we are the kids (the viewers). the candy sales man goes, "here, taste this. oh you like that? here is some more. and if you finish all of it, i'll give you the best part." then give you what you've been promised, then say, "well if you think that was great, next year i'll have something that will blow that away. but you'll have to wait." that's how it should have been. but what they did to us this season was more like... "here is some candy? oh you like it? then here is some more. and if you finish all of it, i'll give you the best part." then when we expect the best part, he spits in our faces and says, "fuck you. you'll just have to wait till next season for whatever i was going to give you."



another thing that they shouldn't do is make you hate the characters. especially the main character of the story. basically, you can blame just about every horrible thing going on with the story on clark's inability to make good decisions. he should have told lana the truth. out of everyone, she would be the most understanding. he should tell chloe to get the hell over it, and should have just told her in the first place. and of course his parents would have totally understood why he wanted to destroy the ship. instead, he is such a frigging moron, we just absolutely hate the main character.

yesterday was quite an intense day. by the end of it, i was basically tossing and turning in pain and the medication couldn't save me from the stress i put on it. i'm much better today.



so anyways, i went to the acupunturist yesterday. and if you've never been, basically you just have your boxers on, and you lye on your stomach so they can stick needles in your back, legs, etc. so i came home, and a few hours i noticed, hmm these boxers doesn't really have a fly. have i never noticed after having them for more than half a year? then another hour went by....and it dawned on me, i was wearing my boxers backwards. the acupuncturist didn't have the heart to tell me i guess since i am in considerable pain every time i have to get out of the car to get to my appointment.



then i went to the doctor's appointment, they gave me a rx for physical therapy, so that's really good news. and i went to work to drop off the forms so i can start work from home. more good news. then i went to the chiropractors. so by the end, i couldn't wait to get home and just try to stabilize the pain.



i started work at home today. my financial problems are temporarily solved. and if i work this monday (holiday), and 6.5 hours on saturday, i won't miss a beat on my paycheck. but i have cashed out all my sick and vacation hours, even the ones i'm earning this month.



i have been in a mood to watch a lot of movies, which is rare for me....and a little ironic considering i got a whole library of movies at home. but on the weekend, i watched:

spirited away

se7en

fried green tomatoes

seven samurai

jay and silent bob strike back



and i've downloaded the following movies starting sunday:

spirited away

better luck tomorrow (indie)

phone booth

chicago

life of david gale

analyze that

the hot chick.



next up, old school. animatrix, catch me if you can, red dragon. then a few more.



and that's not even considering the shows i regularly download. so i am roadrunner's best, or worst customer depending how you look at it.

bit torrent



2 reasons why the torrent sites go down so fast. the millions of hits because of the popularity. and the DOS attacks from MPAA and RIAA, and the likes of. and when they go down, they don't come back. what a shame. here are the current sites



www.bitetorrent.com aka bittorrent.bounceme.net

http://www.marksailes.uklinux.net/bt/

www.suprnova.org (no E)

24 page on the temp site is still kicking... http://66.51.206.234/24/index.html



currently down, but should be coming back

www.torrentse.cx

torrents.slash0.org

the white stripes



who are they, and why have i never heard of them? all i hear is how rockin' they are but never heard a single tune. have i been that out of it? well actually yes, but that's beside the point. almost seems like to me that their popularity was negoriated with a deal with the devil and i was the last one to hear about it. they are everywhere...all over the magazines, and whenever music is mentioned on tv, they are talking about the white stripes. well, i'll have to judge that for myself. whoa that was fast. through bittorrent, it took less than 6 minutes to get the album. done now. listening...

ok, my second computer (my server serving up my domain) died. i cracked it open today because i wanted to get to the bottom of the ear piercing high pitch coming out of that computer. and i found 2 things. the math coprocessor fan wasn't spinning (i took it apart, wd-40'd it and its fine now), but the high pitch noise was actually coming from the hard drive. i noticed that there was some loose power going to the hard drive as well, and playing with that when the computer wasn't smart. i did some serious damage to the hard drive. it won't boot any more. not much valueable stuff in that computer other than the 2000 pictures i've taken with my s230, the source code that ran the picture randomizer, and the asp script that ran the gallery. don't really feel like spending a few hours on both of those again. so even with minimal loss, it is still considerable. i hope i didn't damage anything that can't be recovered, at least partially. i'll have to stick that drive into my other computer when i get a chance to see if i can salvage anything.



what sucks is that the computer that crashed today was a computer that had the best parts available at the time. a $185 ASUS motherboard...that has been the source of all my problems, compared to the $125 MSI motherboard that looks generic in comparison is still performing flawlessly. i think once i finally get all the kinks out, it can still be a solid computer. for right now, it's dead. and random pic and the gallery will be down for a while.

I feel that I need to share some words of wisdom that I’ve gained over the last 10 weeks or so. How ever bad your set back is, as long as it is temporary, consider yourself fortunate. I used to hate it when people said that to me when I was depressed about something that made it seem like things couldn’t get any worse. But only with a true crippling injury this became as clear as day. evenn though my injury can take anywhere from 3-9 months to heal, maybe even with surgery if i can't heal completely on my own, it is something i can fully recover from. and i have to be thankful about that.

so it has been decided. the hardest part of the competition for clay is over. i couldn't really call who would make it to top 2 because i knew it was going to be close and everyone had an edge. ruben was clearly the best, talent wise. kimberly was the only female in the group which gave her more of an edge to her awesome voice. clay had the most fans that were willing to vote, but he's never made it to the bottom 3 or 2 so that can always spell trouble. so this week could have gone in any direction.



but now that it's final 2, there is less of a need to worry about people not voting because he'll probably make it to the next round. the next week is when even the ones who have stoped voting will vote once again along with the ones who have continued to vote. that's why i think clay has this won. we'll find out in a week. there is an hour long american idol next monday, tuesday, wednesday. hang in there clay and ruben. you guys look pretty damn exhausted.

check check

well, actually, this last sunday was my 2 month mark. for some reason i was thinking i was approaching the 3 month mark in about a week. so with such a big herniation (4mm between L4 and L5) i don't think i could be doing any better, so at the 3 month mark...june 11 or so, it looks hopeful that i should be getting back on track.



just so i don't forget, my current symptoms are:

inability to sit without slouching. and doing so causes my spine to really stay curved until i lie down on a flat surface for a long time.

discomfort on the right hip, pain ranging from 0 to 5 lying down.

pain on the right leg, ranging from 1 to 3 lying down.

inability to completely stand up straight.

all levels of pain raise up 3 numbers higher when the medication is wearing off (about the 7th hour).

pain while driving is about 2 to 6 depending on duration and how long i've been outside.



i'll re-evaluate in about 7-10 days.

did anyone have one of these growing up?

click on the image to hear the "demo". here's a link for the full information on the Casio VL-Tone.



if i remember correctly, it was a few years after my dad left Korea to establish somethinig in the United States. Can't remember if he brought it with him when he came back to Korea to visit for a few days, or if he had it sent by mail. Being from a poor family, we had never seen anything like it before. When we got it, we were amazed by this small piece of rock solid electronics that could do so much and sounded amazing at the time. we put it through so much use and it still had no problems. it kept me and my siblings entertained for quite some time. i think it was the one thing that we did bring over from Korea when we moved here. this piece of electronics is a big reference point to what i remember from growing up in Korea. that's why when I heard the partial clip of homestarrunner.com's strong bad email "crazy cartoon", i realized i had to find the whole sound clip to listen to and keep. it's rad that he refers to the song as "the demo".

things are starting to look brighter



i can't really say i'm at the home stretch of this injury. what it has taught me is that even though i get significantly better each week, i have a lot of significant progress to make. i have, just in the last week, developed a routine that will basically eliminate mild to moderate inflammation within a few hours. severe inflammation proably would take a day. this helps me tremendously. makes me feel a lot better, and my body can continue to heal faster without inflammation.



my first win at chess

after about 20 games or so, i was finally able to beat the computer. but i'm still in the beginning stages and still suck at chess. i think the shockwave.com's difficulty on level 1 is set way too hard. it might not play like BIG BLUE, but it never makes any mistakes and always thinks 2 steps ahead of your every move. hard to jump on the steep learning curve. on level 1, the computer should at least make some mistakes a beginning player would.



anyone a big Twilight Zone fan? i thought i was going to have to spend half a grand on the Twilight Zone collection because it would be impossible to find all the episodes online. well, i was wrong. I finished yesterday. Exactly a month from the day I started. if anyone wants a copy, bring a 40 gig hard drive with ya next time. it wasn't as hard as NewsRadio that was a 3 month long project, but then again, i wasn't there to watch it 18 hours a day.



So now I have complete collections of:

24 (permanent)

Alias (soon to be deleted)

CSI (permanent)

CSI: Miami

NewsRadio (will be replaced by official DVDs)

Seinfeld (permanent)

Smallville

Sopranos (deleted, all gone)

The Twilight Zone (permanent)

the american idle...

well, finally josh got the boot. so my theory was correct. even though you can easily say he got the boot because he wasn't as good as the other 3. but i still stand by my theory. had he done a lot poorly, he could have slided by on pity votes like the week before. that's why he was so ashamed to not been in the bottom 2 the week before after such a horrible performance. and that's why he was glad to get voted off this week. because he knew it was his time to go, and it was judged on best what he had to give. something he could be proud of. one recommendation that i would give to the next season of american idol would be that the show shouldn't be dragging it's heels on voting the finalists off. for example, it shouldn't have taken 2 weeks to vote off jennifer olivarez, charles grigsby and their mickey mouse club performances. i would shorten that up. and then further extend the bad auditions. can't seem to get enough of them. what is amazing to me is that looking at kimberly locke and clay aiken's auditions, they looked like totally different people. amazing what a make over and a crew of fashion professionals can do. ruben is the exception. he just got fatter. they must have a good cook at the house. at least ruben ditched those tan leather jackets. i don't know what kind of a look he was going for, but he ended up looking like a butterball turkey...a gianormous one at that. i'm sure most of the people agreed as he finally put back on his 205 sports jerseys. as for the final 2 weeks of the show. the pity votes should mostly stop here. everyone has an edge. some bigger than others. my money is still on clay.



still haven't started work at home yet. today will be the 6th day without pay as my financial stability depends on one guy who can't seem to find the time to put his signature on something at HR. i'm getting a little more concerned as each day passes by with nothing moving forward. you know what's so f'd up about these situations? the institution has too much interest protecting them selves and not enough interest in helping the person that actually needs help.

i haven't blogged for a while. can't do posts like what i did this weekend and stuff like that because nothing goes on when you're under house arrest. since i'm trying to make the most of my time, i decided to finally scratch one of the things off my to do list and learn how to play chess. you still sound a whole hell of a lot smarter saying that you suck at chess rather than say you don't know how to play. who knew going from not knowing how to play chess to sucking at chess would take less than an hour? well, i have played about 15-20 games today. and each game i get a little bit better. i should be a few games away from beating the computer for the first time.



update on my back and related news

well, i'm going to the acupuncturist pretty regularly now and she works miracles. if it wasn't for her, i'd be in so much more pain. i do get these pinching sensations right where the herniated disc is...it feel like an electric shock that is a little soothing also. i feels like every time that happens the disc moves back in place ever so slowly. still got a lot of recovering to do. as for work, i've been out of work for quite a while now. i'm trying to finalize everything so i can start work from home. hopefully it will be worked out soon so i don't take any more days off without pay.



about american idol

well, who knew josh had it in him to give an above average performance? if my theory holds true (discussed a few posts back), since he did so much better than last week, he'll get the boot this week. everyone wanted to save him last week, while this week, all the ones who voted last week doesn't think he'll need the extra help any more. this should clear the way for the real 3 finalists clay, ruben, and kimberly. they all have their different advantages. one note about tonight. kimberly's second performance was horrible. it was like it wasn't her at all. the backup seemed wayyy off, but it was kimberly that was off because the back ups are pre-recorded. again, i missed one of clay's best performances ever switching channels. for everyone doubting clay's marketability if he wins the show, just look at how sucessful josh groban is. josh groban has experience on his back, is a much more classier performer, but no flare and no excitement. so to all of clay's doubters, you got it all wrong. check out josh groban to see for yourself. clay will be more successful doing what josh groban is doing because he is already a common household name.



the sopranos

what is the deal with this show? i watched all 4 seasons...wasn't too impressed. it was good drama at best. nowhere near "the best show ever" as nguyen liked to describe it. and if you haven't heard, gandolfini (tony soprano) isn't returning to season 5. i'm going to guess that the guy with the heroin problem (can't even remember his name), is going to be the new boss and the center of the show or it will be the developing story of how he comes to power. just a blind guess on my part. reason why gandolfini isn't coming back was that he wanted a raise from 5 million to 15 million a year. HBO said they can only give him 11. there was a suit. and then a countersuit. so they just settled out of court with no money exchanged, and gandolfini without a job. HBO doesn't mess around. to be honest there are no admirable qualities of tony soprano. in fact, he is very annoying at time. makes bad judgements. and how many times has he burst out of the psychiatrist's office because he got mad over a question? redundant. annoying. done to death. and the bad decisions come from him because he doesn't place enough value on people that he should give more of his attention to. he sure makes me believe he's not too smart, along with not having all his marbles. the only truly wise character who seems admirable and would be a good leader one day is that guy with the pony tail who went back to italy because he couldn't deal with being in love with tony sorano's husband.



alias

a superspy who can't seem to control her emotions.....doesn't anyone see the problem with this? it is true i'm reading too much into it. it is simply a girl-kicks-ass drama (like many out there) that a girl and guy would have some interest in watching. but a superspy shouldn't be that emotionally sensitive. in real life, they would have never made her a spy because she's a live one. and what about the sucky season finaly they put together. totally exposed how untalented the writers of alias really are. do they even watch movies? that's not how any season should end. pretty much nothing happened. and instead of resolving a lot of problems and there being a climax, they totally cut out any of the just skipped the climactic part and added more things to resolved later. and that means later next season. imagine, you're watching a movie like...say terminator 2. remove the last 25 minutes of the movie. insert back in the 5 minute ending where everything is peaceful. and say, "come back and see terminator 3 to see what happened." totally awful.



24

if you haven't been watching 24 season 2, oh man you're so missing out. by far, i gotta say it is the most well written and thought out plots ever produced as a tv show, period. the plot is so intense, its mindblowingly good. can't wait till the show ends next 2 weeks.



smallville

wow, last night's episode was quite a surprise. wasn't expecting that. maybe because it never happens (clark and lana getting together). but finally they are taking big steps. someone was telling me about how smallville because most of the stories are pretty lame. and yeah. i agree. i mainly watch the show for lana. that and the occasional good episodes.

i sing the body anabolic



so i called to schedule my appointment at the pain clinic to get a shot of steroids to help me deal with the inflammation which causes a lot of the pain and discomfort. so the earliest appointment is in may 30. exactly 30 days from now. what's the big freakin' hold up? can't i just go there, roll down my windows, stick out my arm, roll up my sleeve, and then take care of business?



well, if i need to go with surgery, it is definitely not something i need to worry about. the procedure today is very simple. small straight incision. then then suck the disc in place, and put a bandaid over it. there's a team of surgens and all they do is suck discs all day. a team of disc suckers. i wonder how many times they heard that one. anyway, the operation will take minutes of my time. out the same day. and if there is no inflammation at the time, then i should be back to business the same day. no rods necessary. but what got me was that the doctor said that he personally would wait 3-6 months before doing the operation on himself. so i guess that says something. there can always be complications. i don't have any plans on scheduling the operation at this time.



today is my brother's birthday. Happy Birthday John! he turns 21. now all my immediate family members are 21 and over. time for a vegas trip? :) and my cousin's birthday also. she turns 22, and is getting married on saturday. unfortunately because of my injury i won't be able to attend. not that we are close relatives, but when a marriage happens, that's when the relatives need to come together.



ever think of what you might want as your last meal if you were to be executed at mid night? being the health nut that i am, i'm surprised that the top choices are all the foods that i consciously avoid, like fried chicken, or something in high saturated fat, or rich in simple carbohydrates. in the end, its not like i've learned to enjoy the healthier foods over foods i have always loved. its just that health is higher in priority than indulging on food. here is what my last meal would look like:

KFC - Extra Crispy

McDonald's Fries

Krispy Kreme Donuts - Original

Inn & Out - Double Double with Onions

Filet Mignon - Prime - medium rare

Prime Rib - Prime - medium rare/rare

sushi - various kinds



if I can finish all that, I would also have:

Fried calamari

thai drunken noodles

Shrimp cocktail

Lobster

teriyaki chicken

CPK - BBQ Chicken Pizza

CPK - Chicken Tequila Pasta

seafood/clam linguini with white sauce.



and for desert, i would have deep fried ice cream with some knd of a glaze...and maybe a chocolate chip cookie.