Not my practice blog, by Scott Knaster

Trapped for 17 days

A family was trapped in a snowbound RV for 17 days before being rescued earlier this week. The kids thought it was fun. Crazy kids!

Windows XP on Intel Macs...

...is real. I spent time this weekend following the instructions and getting it to work. And this is kinda how I feel (thanks to Mike Morton for the link to the cartoon).

Back

I've had an interesting few days. Last Thursday morning, I lifted a 6-gallon jug of water into the water cooler, just as I've done thousands of times. But this time, I did something wrong. I immediately felt a tweak in my back. During the subsequent 24 hours, it got more and more sore, and by Saturday I was having trouble bending, standing, or doing anything else that requires your lower back (which is just about anything physical).

By Monday morning I literally could not get out of bed. I was having frequent back spasms, with contractions every 90 seconds or so, although the baby never came. When I finally got out of bed to go to the doctor, I had to pause every few steps while my back decided to seize up.

The doctor diagnosed a lower back sprain, said it would take 4 weeks to heal fully, and prescribed a muscle relaxant and anti-inflammatory. And the drugs have worked miracles. Less than two days later, I'm up and around with almost no trouble. And yes, I'm being careful.

There are a couple of problems:

1. Every day about 2 PM, the muscle pills knock me out cold for about 2 hours. That's a little too relaxing.
2. Yesterday I dropped a 600mg ibuprofen pill. The dog said "candy!" and gobbled it up before my wife and I could stop her. After a trip to the vet, she's fine now. But that wasn't fun.

Barry Bonds and steroids

I'm a baseball fan and I really don't care what drugs Barry Bonds uses, just like I don't care what kind of freak surgery Curt Schilling had that helped him win the 2004 World Series but might cost him his ability to walk, and just like I don't care that hundreds of players have had "Tommy John" surgery that would have cost them their careers a few decades ago.

And I don't buy the "think of the children" argument, either. Kids should not use drugs to help them bulk up for sports. They also should not drink alcohol, have sex, or drive cars, but adults should be (and are) allowed to do those things. The tension between what adults are allowed to do and what kids are not allowed to do is inescapable.

But here's where Barry loses me: the coverup. If he's such a badass, let's see him tell the truth. Let's hear him say "yeah, I did it, so what? McGwire, Sosa, Caminti, Canseco, and who knows who else got away with it. I wanted mine. And I don't apologize for it." Until he does that, he's a fake.

Big movie weekend

In honor of the Oscars (I guess), I saw not one but two major motion pictures this week. On Sunday morning the whole family went to see Curious George, and it was fun. It's great to see a super-innocent kids story treated respectfully and not "updated" into a crass "modern" version (ahem, The Cat in the Hat).

Monday night Barbara and I saw Neil Young's Heart of Gold. I rarely have the patience for concert movies. We're huge Neil Young fans, and I haven't seen any of his previous concert films. But this one was terrific. The camera starts by giving you the best seat in the house, then takes many other points of view, most of them up very close. The sound was great, even in the tiny theatre, and at times it felt so real that I almost started clapping at the end of a song.

The Daily Show is parody

Not everybody knows The Daily Show is fooling around. When Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was interviewed for The Daily Show recently, he took it seriously. So he was kinda confused when Jason Jones from The Daily Show asked, among other things, whether he was "The Gay Governor".

Actual TV dialog

Two women contestants on "The Amazing Race" last Tuesday night:

"Son of a bitch! I just peed my pants!"
"Me too!"
"Thank you Jesus!"