O. F. Mare

SaintsIn an article in the Sun-Herald about the Saints kicker situation and Mare’s groin injury that is supposedly keeping him from making field goals, Olindo F. Mare said:

“I’m not worried about anybody taking my job as far as when I’m healthy,” Mare said.

Then Mare alluded to Tony Romo’s five interceptions and lost fumble when the Dallas Cowboys played at Buffalo on Monday night.

“You can’t base it on one game or Dallas wouldn’t have a quarterback.”

Yeah, but the difference is, Dallas won.

K-Ville

What a steaming pile of crap that show is.  Bad acting, bad writing, and bad plots that all seem to revolve around some kind of sketchy real estate deal to buy up poor folks’ homes in the East or the Lower Ninth Ward.

This week’s episode was even better because they needed to include the Mexican immigrants in the plot.  Apparently, there are no cars in New Orleans, and the laborers needed to bring in the Latin Kings gang to organize rides to job sites.  Just a bad, bad show all around.

In a related note, thank you New England Patriots for sucking every bit of joy out of Monday Night Football.  I had zero interest in watching them dismantle the Bengals and watched stupid K-Ville instead.  Thanks.

Cheaters.

Dentistry is a sham

I went to the dentist today for the first time in more than eight years.  Thanks to my experiences as a child getting fourteen teeth pulled at the request of orthodontists, I am terrified of dentists.  I was literally shaking when I sat in the chair today.  No one takes this phobia seriously.  Shame on you if you don’t.

Anyway,  I finally worked up the courage to go in for a cleaning today.  The staff was reasonably nice, and tried to make me feel comfortable.  I sat through what seemed like an eternity getting my teeth scraped, sweating, and involuntarily flinching the entire time.

The last time I went to the dentist, I was living in Philadelphia, about 8 years ago.  I was moving to Boston, and was about to lose my health insurance from work, as I was going back to school.  This dentist cleaned my teeth and told me I had three cavities, and told me I should make an appointment to get them filled.  I left town instead.

But today, the Atlanta dentist said, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, because we may not see you for another eight years, but you don’t have a single cavity.”  I was surprised.  I didn’t say anything about the Philly dentist, I took my free toothbrush and happily left.  By the way, he also made a ton of comments about the amount of teeth I was missing.

As I was driving home, congratulating myself on not having to get six root canals as I had imagined, I started thinking about my disappearing cavities.  Admittedly, I already have a low opinion of dentists.  Was the Philly dentist incompetent?  Is the Atlanta dentist incompetent?  If I can’t trust someone with a DDS to accurately examine my teeth, why should I listen to anything they say?

Here are the options, in my mind:

  1. The Philly dentist made up the cavities in order to make more money by getting me to have unnecessary dental work done.   This makes him a bad doctor.
  2. The Atlanta dentist didn’t see the cavities, despite the ridiculous amount of x-rays that were taken today.  This makes him an incompetent doctor.
  3. The Atlanta dentist saw the cavities but neglected to tell me about them, rightly realizing that if he told me that I had to have tons of dental work done, I would get scared and never go back.  By building my confidence by not telling me I had cavities, he could get me back in in six months for the next cleaning and then lay it on me.  This makes him untrustworthy, even if his intentions are good.
  4. Despite my lack of regular flossing, the cavities magically disappeared.

I’m going with Option #3 right now.  If that is true, can a doctor really do that?  Shouldn’t he be required to tell me everything he discovers about my body?  That’s what I’m paying him for, isn’t it?  It seems unethical to withhold information like that.

I bet Option #1 is the most likely, and it confirms what I have long suspected about the medical profession, and dentistry in particular: that doctors are more concerned about making money than they are about their patents’ health.

Am I too cynical?  Perhaps.  But where did my cavities go?

The Best of 2005

2005 was hands-down the worst year of my 30 years. I don’t think anyone can argue with that. I’m glad to see it go away. While I won’t remember it fondly, I will acknowledge 2005 as a life-changing year. The events of 2005 weren’t always the easiest to swallow or even manage, but their effects will continue to affect my life, and those of my family and friends for years to come. How we deal with those effects is up to us. We can use it as an excuse to give up (the Saints) or we can rise above those events beyond our control and build a better future. I’m choosing the latter. I don’t know of any other way.

Here’s to a better future in 2006. I can’t wait to put 2005 behind me and start over. Thank you to everyone who has been here (from a distance or right in my own house). Without the people I love, 2005 would have been unbearable.

I started this post as a “Best of elbuzzard.com” type thing and got a little side-tracked. Here are some stats from the blog’s first year.

Most Popular Posts – by number of comments
While she doesn’t post very often, Leslie snags 2 of the top 3 most commented-on posts.

  1. Leslie’s Good Things (not necessarily the top 10 of all time) by Leslie- 16 comments
  2. Picking a new team… by Kent – 13 comments
  3. The Top Ten Good Things About Christmas by Leslie – 12 comments

Total number of posts: 196

Total number of comments: 383

Most Prolific Commenters (not an author)

  1. Marnie and TygrrToo (tie) – 30 comments
  2. Staceman – 18 comments
  3. Capn Jack – 7 comments

Happy New Year, everyone!

My Favorite Thing About Christmas

My favorite thing about this time of the year is when people start getting all indignant about other folks wanting to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. Get over it.

“Oh my God goodness! What will happen to Christmas if is not sanctioned in the way I wish to celebrate it by society as a whole! Oh my God goodness, my culture and heritage is oppressed! Whoa is me and Christianity! However will we overcome? Soon the government will be throwing us to the lions! Oh the state of the true religion religion of the majority in this country! The damn political correctness crowd will be the downfall of the American Way!”

Here in Atlanta, people actually make it on the news complaining about “Happy Holidays.” There was a news story on last night about someone who took out a billboard that read:

To hell with the “holidays”; keep Christ in your Christmas

I can understand complaining about “Xmas.” “Keep Christ in Christmas” seems legitimate to me. (of course, I do find it funny that the cross is the symbol of Christianity, yet folks don’t like Xmas).

I’m not even going to mention the irony of swearing in your religious statement.

World of Warcraft

Warning: Dork alert. Be advised.

I’ve been secretly following the development of the new expansion to World of Warcraft. While it’s true that I haven’t really missed the game since I quit several months ago (about 1 week after reaching level 60), I was afraid that the expansion would be neat enough to suck me back in. I’ve always enjoyed the cartoony style of WoW as well as levels 1-20, and thought that maybe the expansion would be more of that, with two new races and all.

But one of the new races is called the Blood Elf. It looks like the regular old Night Elf that has been in the game already. Except its red. Oooh boy. Since the other race hasn’t been released yet, I’m holding on to hope that its the Pandaren.

And then, I read this on the expansion website:

An increase in the level cap to 70

And I totally lost all interest in WoW. Not even drunk panda samarai could get me to go back. I wish game designers would learn to add more to the lower levels, rather than make the highest level harder to get too. I quit one week after my character hit the level cap. There was nothing to do. Why would I have any interest in leveling ten more times to be left with nothing to do?

Sony h.earâ„¢ Stereo Headphones MDR-J10/BLUE

Sony MDRJ10 EarbudsWhat a piece of junk. This is the second pair of these Sony earbuds that has broken on me, and I am forced to use those branding white iPod earbuds. I hate wearing those, its like wearing a badge that says, “Look at me, I’m hip! I’m on the bandwagon, hooray!” They also say, in large letters, “Hi, if you want to rob me, it will be worth your time.”

So I replaced the white earbuds with normal black earbuds. Well, blue earbuds to be exact.

And this morning they broke. The wire to the left bud snapped. It didn’t come out at a soldered joint, it just snapped right in the middle of the wire. There was no bend or crease, or point of wear where it broke. It just broke – right in the middle – just like the last pair I of these Sony earbuds I owned. I guess you get what you pay for, and these were only $10.

On a superstitious note, the last time my earbuds busted was just before Leslie got a job. Maybe this is some kind of omen.