A Splintered Mind

The protective scroll wheel covering came off my iPod mini a few weeks ago and it revealed an odd defect on the select button. A perfectly round divot at the top of the button warped the buttons shape and prevented it from being flush. The unit worked fine (aside from occassional calendar issues), so I didn't think the functionality was ruined, but it did bother me. So I contacted Apple. They wanted to charge me $50 for tech support since my unit was outside of the free 90 days, so I hurriedly explained my need and that led me to their website where I filled out a form. I must have selected the wrong section though because there were no options to select a problem with my iPod - just it's peripherals. I selected what I thought was a peripheral that would be the same size as my iPod: the remote. I explained the problem in detail and mentioned that this was not a remote issue. I then submitted the request. 24 hours later a box arrived that was the perfect size for my ...

Update 5:56am: Insomnia has proven to be the worst of my troubles tonight. I beat the depression into submission hours ago. I haven't fared so well with the insomnia. I had tried to go to sleep at 5am. I was all nestled sweetly inside my covers, CPAP mask strapped lovingly to my face like Ripley's facehugger , a blindfold over the CPAP mask to block out the early morning sunbeams that were bound to burst into my room any minute, and I managed to drift off to sleep for a moment when I was rudely awoken as I began choking for air. That was exciting. Sleep apnea is always good for fun and giggles. However, after your heart is pounding in your chest because you were suffocating it's hard to drift back into sleep. When the bird started chirping outside my window a few minutes later I knew I had lost the battle. It is times like this that I do believe in a God because I am fairly certain he doesn't care for me much. All I need is to break out in boils and I could give Job a...

Short entry tonight. It's 10 minutes to 2 and the moon is out and everybody is asleep. Insomnia has been very bad lately and consequently so has my depression. I find that my insomnia usually triggers depression. I was reading an article about that the other day I may comment on next time. So I'm keeping busy and trying to make something of my day. Offset the sadness with feelings of accomplishment. When I am down for no reason I try to force myself to do almost ANYTHING other than what I've been doing to shake off the sadness. Here's a small sample from my bag of tricks: I read a book I check things off my To Do List I watch some educational TV (NO channel surfing!) I go out for a walk I try VERY HARD not to eat because I'm bored or down I write in my novel I work on one of my blogs I work out I dance (Yeah, all by myself. Heck, I could use the exercise anyway) I clean something (with four kids there's ALWAYS something that could use cleaning. ...

According to the press release over at Virginia Commonwealth University: Ever since German anatomist and physiologist Frederick Tiedmann wrote in 1836 that there exists “an indisputable connection between the size of the brain and the mental energy displayed by the individual man,” scientists have been searching for biological evidence to prove his claim. Researchers at VCU have apparently provided this long sought for evidence. Larger brain size correlates with greater intelligence. I'm not contesting the results of the study because I have a small hat size. I'm not contesting their findings at all. I have no reason to believe their findings aren't in fact the truth. What comes to my mind is, haven't we always believed this? Think of all the texts on evolution you read in High School and College. Think of any article involving a new form of ancient man discovered over the past few decades. The subject of how dumb these guys must have been is always bro...

As reported in the UK's The Independent , scientists have successfully grown new brain cells with mice. I cannot express enough how excited I am about this development. Finally! I'll be able to replace the brain I lost years ago. I didn't mean to misplace it, but I set it down and got distracted. Anyway, when Bjorn Scheffler , a neuroscientist at the University of Florida, made the breakthrough I'm sure he wasn't hoping to inspire lame "lost brain cell" jokes. Instead, he was thinking of curing Dementia, Parkinson's Disease, and Epilepsy. Until this point in time, there were no medical ways to recreate lost brain cells. Any neurological illness that ate away at the brain could be slowed, perhaps, with medications, but not stopped, and certainly it's debilitating affects could not be reversed. Now, history is being made. What excites me most about this breakthrough is that my own disabilities could one day be repaired. I've learn...

It's been a while since something stupid but funny happened to me. Not that the opposite had been happening. I'm not sure I want to experience intelligent but unamusing events. Instead, I'll have to settle for wet underwear. My wife came home late the other night from the laundrymat with all our laundry in tidy bags (Our dryer stopped working but I didn't think that was funny enough to write about). Four bags of neatly folded laundry all stacked and ready to be put away. So the next morning she went to do just that and discovered that the Simple Green had emptied out - all over my underwear. Four bags packed with clothing. One bag with her and my underwear and mine are the only ones stained squeeky green. I swear the Universe is out to get me.

Before moving onto part two of my blog on blogging, I wanted to write up a quick report on my progress with Melatonin just in case you were thinking of using it to treat your insomnia. After a week and a half on Optimum Nutrition's Melatonin I have to stop. Like most geeks and other tortured souls I am up late into the night, but often I can't go to sleep even if I want to. I don't tend to need caffeine or stimulants to stay up late. I'm awake already. That's why I thought perhaps Melatonin could safely help me turn my clock back while helping me sleep through the night. If you are used to caffeine to get your ticker tocking into the wee hours you may want to consider cutting back before popping what some describe as " nature's sleeping pill ". What worked at first for me began to work adversely. The first week Melatonin worked wonderfully. I pushed my bedtime back by hours. But soon the Melatonin stopped making me sleepy. You know how it is -...

The Fat Kid decided to stop his musings and Bosh decided to blog about it . Now I'm blogging about Bosh's musings. That's the way most internet memes are passed: Idea sparking idea. The idea at hand is whether blogging has reached a plateau or not on its way from cutting edge to mainstream. Let's look at some events in the blogosphere in the past week. In the Wall Street Journal we have an article about job openings for bloggers to earn big money blogging for corporations. Wil Wheaton, Mr. Wesley Crusher himself, blogged about having mono and feeling pretty lousy , and a brand new site opened up heralding the arrival of blogging into the mainstream with its own A lists, B lists, and C lists of Blogebrities . The WSJ article lists salaries of $40,000 to $70,000 blogging about yogurt and popcorn. I suppose some would say that blogs geared at helping people feel good about dairy products or snacks are a far cry from blogging's edgy roots in personal expre...