the life and times of a mercutiom.

Implant Removal Surgery

First things first: Not THAT kind of Implant!!!!

If you saw my last post, you saw my ugly teeth after the surgery I had on Friday. i had a failing Dental Implant that had to be removed. The surgery went well, and I have a whole lot of Vicodin that I’m not going to take and some Amoxicillin that I will.

The original reason for having the implants is the car accident I was in when I was 16. I was rushing back to the coffee shop with some friends in the car, not paying very good attention, and missed the blind turn at the top of the hill. The car went flying spun in the air and landed facing the opposite direction on its side on some train tracks. (Luckily no train was en route.)

I, the driver of the vehicle and not wearing a seat belt, flew forward, smashed my face on the steering wheel, bounced up and star patterned the windshield and then somehow ended up in the backseat. Needless to say, I wear a seatbelt now. In the course of this flight, I lost 2 teeth. A third tooth had to be extracted later.

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Post surgery gums. I have to say I expected a lot more swelling than I’m having. Still having an implant removed isn’t what I’d consider fun.

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They’re claiming they didn’t plan this.

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Fluffy Coltrane…

…acting like a parrot.

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Sleepy Chewy…

…chillin’ on my ample belly.

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Sleepy Carter…

…questioning what the hell that black thing in my hand is.

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Florida Bound

While I probably won’t be enjoying the beaches (apparently it’s in the 40s this week) I’m off to Orlando in just a few hours. Can’t wait to get there and see my girl.

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No, I'm Not Canadian

and yes, I like curling. I don’t remember when I started liking curling. I think it was the Calgary Olympics in ‘88 where I first saw the sport. I watched it because it wasn’t hockey or figure skating, and back then we didn’t have Hulu or Netflix.

Immediately I felt drawn to the sport. The physics, the skill, the mad sweeping of brooms. When I first watched, I thought, “what the hell is going on with this shit?” After getting through a match, I knew I’d be watching curling every 4 years come Hell or high water.

It’s just a fun sport. No, it’s not like shuffle board (and I and every Canadian I know will smack you for saying so.) It’s much more than that. It’s aim, weight, push, release, brush, and prey.

I’ll admit that I don’t know much else about the sport other than what’s shown every four years in a new location. I’m not fully versed on the rules, but I have watched a round or two when I can catch it, and I’ve even seen the romantic comedy “Men With Brooms.”

I don’t know, I just like curling, and again, no, I’m not Canadian. I’m from Missouri for the gods sake.

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CSE Majors Cheating

I can’t say I’m surprised that CSE majors are the ones who cheat the most. Most computer nerds (and if you’re majoring in CSE, you meet the requirements) know all about Google, and this whole “copy” and “paste” thing (something that I’ve had to explain to friends and family way too often.)

Take that, and the fact that writing even a short program from scratch can take 30 hours. Take those and add in the aspect that most CSE professors refuse to let you use anything they haven’t yet taught (I’m looking at you unnamed Java prof of mine) and you’re going to get a lot of “borrowed” code.

Now I’m not saying that makes it right. I know that you have to have a good base knowledge and build upon it. I know that building those early 30hr programs teaches you the patience you’ll need in order to build your own real, hopefully useful, program someday. But in this day and age where a simple series of clicks on the mouse gets you damn near anything you’ll ever want, it’s just not that surprising to me that the people who know how to click the best use it to cheat.

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Dear Bill O'Reilly

I just watched about 2 minutes of the O’Reilly factor (the most I could take) and saw that Billy-boy was complaining that a recent Gallup Poll didn’t define socialism. He claimed that this lack of a definition resulted in people “falsely” believing that our government wasn’t moving toward his hated socialism.

So I looked it up for him. Here’s the correct definition of socialism care of good ol’ Webster’s Dictionary:

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