OK, the second dentist in two years is telling me I have Oscar-quality gingivitis, which results in the scurvy-like loss of teeth due to bone loss.

The first place suggested using a flouride rinse, but the new place stressed the importance of punishing, De-Sade-esque flossing and the patience of Job, in order to actually wait out the interminable 30-seconds-per-quad that the horrible instrument of entrapment known as a Sonicare requires.

The upshot of all this is incredible gum pain shortly after dinner, and consequent crankiness and pain-related personality deformations. Too much gum, indeed.

I met Dan and Jim at the U. District Safeway, where we discovered a produce section crowded with fifty or sixty folks, to the growing bemusement of the store’s employees. Eric Sooros emailed me that he was accosted by a store representative be cause he, his wife Rose, and their infant child “looked like they knew what was going on.” Both Eric and I, as it turns out, purchased some produce.

Jim took pictures.

In the midst of the crowded produce section, about seven people began by holding aloft a selection of produce, silently. Then one of the performers began to sing the Clash song, “All Lost in the Supermarket,” which quickly spread to the otyher performers and some of the rest of the crowd. Slightly anxious Safeway employees looked on from the edges of the produce section, which was very full.

Suddenly a guy in a white shirt, featuring the classic managerial combination of cheesy moustache, thinning hair, and black tie rushed in and began scolding the singers, saying “you can’t just sing in the supermarket,” whereupon, of course, Jason struck a chord and the whole lot broke into a Broadway-style hand-waving kick-kick-turn chorus line as they sang a little ditty based upon the phrase.

Then Jim, Dan and I waited interminably for my onions to be rung up, whereupon we headed off to the dank recesses of Finn MacCool’s for a beer and on to the brighter precincts of the Big Time, where we ended the evening, noticing that the brewpub both advertised free wifi and was remarkably uncrowded for a Saturday night, and as the de facto social comittee for MeFi Seattle, it’s on the list of potential venues.

Partway through the evening the ever-amusing Dan remarked that a neighboring tabe had brought a giant robot frog out drinking with them, an amusing wisecrack that improbably turned out to be true. By coincidence, I was wearing the hopkin tee that John and Mikey gave me.

Later, the people with the frog gave it to me.

Man, today is the first day in months that I’ve felt refreshed and efficient. I was a whirlwind at work today, just cranking out the orders, and when I got home I immediately piled into jobs two, three, and four.

I still have to move the laundry around downstairs, but I was able to bat cleanup on everything else, in time to meet Greg tonight to discuss his project.

Unfortunately, he sent me a new draft today – a day after my first read and initial notetaking – and so that added time to my evening. Printing it, transferring yesterday’s chicken scrawls over, and trying to get one more readthrough in before we meet tonight used the entire time budget I had for a second read. So the piece won’t have the benefit of a leisurely review, red pen in hand, this evening.

Greg will be here in 45 minutes. We’re going to Georgetown. I have to break the news about boozing it up on project nights to him. He’ll be doubtful.

While googling revealed no reports of concern regarding the square white power supplies curently shipping for iBooks and Powerbooks, I just noticed that the one attached to this computer is so hot that it hurts to touch it for more than a few seconds.

In other news, I looks like the feverish intense and concentrated two hours of magazine-related work I have been doing on coming home from work will draw to a close for a couple of weeks, possibly mid-next week, which will be a relief and possibly afford more time for blogging.

Damme!

I was scheduled to meet some miscellaneous digital reprobates at the behest of Mr. Dent this evening.

But this morning when I woke up I had nausea, bad enough that I went home from work and crawled into bed. Naturally, I said to my self, “Self, this is a perfect time to try a trial install of OS Commerce.” So, one hand tapping the keys of the powerbook, one eye closed in misery, I did so, and the setup appears to have gone off without a hitch.

Then I passed out. I was unsure if I was feverish for much of the day, but I certainly felt quite hot. Even now, at 9 pm, I’m not hungry at all. I am preparing to eat some ramen, in an experimental fashion.

I did not vomit or experience diarrhea at all, so my initial thesis, that I had eaten some bad food, is unlikely. When Viv took my temperature, it was 99, not really enough of an elevation to count as a fever for me (I run hot anyway).

So, I regret my illness and wish it to be gone in the morning. Currently, I have a massive headache and muscle aches, no runny nose or sneezing or coughing, and recurrent, mysterious long, slow pains deep in my lungs. I really don’t believe I’m at risk, but some of these symptoms are reminiscent of a heart attack. I don’t have a center-chest pain at all, or any odd symptoms in my arms, so I think this is pretty unlikely.

Whatever it is, it’s making me very uncomfortable.

I have written about my love for Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry here, quite some time ago.

Among other things, I wrote

My personal favorite was the little room off one of the stairs into which one stumbled upon discovering the floor had been faceted in many crazy angled slabs. These slabs simulated random motion, as though the room were being turned and rocked this way and that – architectural cubism!

The impetus for such a wonder of danger and insanity? Why, look out the window! there’s the GIANT HEAD OF PAUL BUNYAN, his 24″ eye-globes rumbling and clacking llleft, then rrright, as he surveys the interior of the little cabin he holds aloft and its’ ever changing cast.

The sole link, to an undersized scan of a pencil drawing of the interior of the room, has succumbed to linkrot.

Therefore, great was my joy when a fellow Vulgar Boatmen enthusiast, unknown to me by sight, emailed a terse note informing me of our shared appreciation for not only the music of the VB but also for the past wonders of the Bunyan room.

Attached to the note was this handsome souvenir image, clearly demonstrating why it is that terror and giants have always been synonymous.

My correspondent further noted that he and a family member searched the museum for the missing woodsman, concluding, “we finally found Paul’s big mute face hung on a wall in the basement,
opposite a snack bar.”

Clearly, the next time I am in town, another expedition must be arranged.

Hey look! It’s blurry pictures (and a very dark 11mb video) from last night’s MetaFilter Meetup.

In attendance: kindall, agropyron, cirocco, astruc, alexgb, caitlinb, mwhybark, non-MeFite Adam, black8, Danelope, Keyser Soze aka Frito, fatllama.

Here are the photos. (Alas, I found that ecto won’t play nice with MT3.x + Blacklist while attempting to upload these pix here. Bye, ecto! I’ll miss you! Maybe I’ll miss you enough to try to troubleshoot, but not tonight!)

I actually meant to mention this in yesterday’s entry: we were able to locate my missing PDA in the lost-and-found at Virginia Mason.

That’s a mixed blessing, but on the whole a good thing. I had been looking at 8mb and 16mb Vx’s on eBay (the newly-returned PDA is an IBM-branded 8mb Palm Vx, also an ebay purchase) and while 8mb models can be obtained from $20 to $40, the 16mb model starts at about $80. A brand new Tungsten C, the only current Palm that includes wifi, is about $200 on ebay.

If they had only left that butt-ugly thumb-board off the damn thing.

Anyway, it means one fewer set of technocrap to wrangle in my house.

I am gonna dump a bunch of my old computer gear in January – anubody have any wants? All my stuff is Mac-oriented, so unless you know the ropes or really want to learn, you’re not interested. Trust me.

I might post a detailed manifest here. Items will include a Cisco 675 DSL router, two bootable but dead-screen Wallstreets with various accessories, and a g3 upgraded 9500 with firewire, an 18 gb internal SCSI drive, and a ton of ram.

Spence came over and shared the day with Vivian, my parents, and me. There was much eating of cheese.