Yay!  I finally know what I have!

Ok, so I didn't actually go to the doctor.  I asked Dr. Google.

I just wanted some validation that tooth pain COULD be related to sinus problems, because I get relief from decongestants and steam treatments, the same as if I had normal sinus congestion.  Except my freaking teeth hurt SOOOOOO FUCKING BAD that I have been begging Hubby to shoot me in the face (NOW!!!!)


Not to mention that my left cheek is swollen and if you touch it, I WILL SHOOT  YOU.

A week ago I had many of these symptoms, but then, POOF! they were gone.  For a whole blessed week.

Tonight the motherfucker WOKE ME UP at 2 am!  But I know why.  The winds changed, and we are being inundated with smoke from the Day fire again.

Anyway, I started looking to see if tooth pain was ever associated with sinus problems, and every symptom listed is something I have:
nasal congestion?  Check.
nasty nasal goo (discharge)? Check.
Swollen, painful cheek?  Check.
Tooth pain not identifiable to one specific tooth?  Check.
More painful when lying down or bending? DEFINITELY
Better after steam, heat applied to face, and/or decongestants?  Check.

I had no idea that this was even possible, let alone common.  Go figure.
And now it's 4:30 AM and I need some sleep.... maybe I can, the decongestant seems to be working ok.

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Jim of Parkway Rest Stop and his crack staff have uncovered a transcript!

Drink warning for the end!

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It's also Happy Happy Birthday for blog-bro Contagion and the lovely Mrs. Smash.  Do drop by and wish them your best!

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To Sadie, daughter of my bloggyparents, Jay and Deb!

The original blog baby turns TWO today!

Time sure flies.  I hope she enjoys the present which should arrive Monday or Tuesday (damn slow Amazon.com.....)

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Congratulations are in order for fellow blogger and Cotillionette Holly Aho and her family!

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As many of you probably know, Bill Cosby has an Ed.D. That's Education Doctor, BTW.

Here's what he has to say about education: "Why can't students practice algebra for hours like teams practice sports?"

Further:

...[W]hen freshman Kimya Thompson shouted that the subject was boring, Cosby, from Shelburne, brought her on stage.

He told her that if she and her peers didn't sharpen their academic skills, they'd be earning minimum wage.

Cosby told the 450 students that they couldn't go to jail for getting straight As, but they could get shot for selling drugs.

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...going on over at Babalu.

First, check out George's post on Clinton's interview with Chris Wallace.  Then read the comments!

Frankly, you should know you've lost the argument when you resort to saying things like "Sure wish Bush would have sex with some intern..."

The Babalu smackdown continues courtesy of Condi Rice.

Be sure to check it all out!

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Over the last several years professional teams and colleges alike have been tripping over themselves in a rush to sell the "naming rights" of their home stadiums and arenas to corporate partners for a boatload of cash. Because of this a number of historic stadium names have been lost. Some examples: Candlestick Park, long home of the Giants and 49ers is now Monster Park, it's 3rd or 4th name; and New Jersey's Brendan Byrne Arena, long home of the NHL's Devils, is now the Continental Airlines Arena.

Colleges too are jumping on the bandwagon. Syracuse plays in the Carrier Dome (which ironically enough has no air conditioning!), and the University of Missouri briefly named its on-campus arena Paige Arena, after Elizabeth Paige Laurie, a Wal-Mart heiress, at least until her roommate at USC (that's right, she was not a U of M student, either!) revealed that Miss Laurie had engaged in academic dishonesty and subsequently left the university.

But the trend has now come full circle. Officials in Glendale, AZ announced today that the naming rights to the new Cardinals Stadium have been sold. To the University of Phoenix.

Now I know that U of P is a corporate entity more than a school, but it is deliciously funny to see a corporation pay to call a stadium "University of [anything] Stadium".

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Wow, I'm link #10 for "olympus fashion week project runway". Seven of the nine links ahead of me are either OFW official pages, or major media pages covering OFW. And I'm only the 3rd blog, behind the greatness that is BPR...

If you got here looking for fabulousness, welcome, and have a look around!

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1 Well, you *are* fabulous...

Posted by: Richmond at September 25, 2006 05:51 PM (e8QFP)

2 you are also very funny!

Posted by: vw bug at September 26, 2006 07:37 AM (h89Bu)

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Work is a shitstorm right now for reasons I am unable to reveal publicly.

So, in order to make myself laugh (at least), here are the lyrics to "White and Nerdy" so that you can officially verify that you too are "Too white and nerdy..."

Lyrics below the jump! more...

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Courtesy of Weird Al:

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So this week was my turn for the Spyvella chapter, but I have been dealing with some major issues at work (hence the dearth of posting this week). I'll try to get it together and post it soon. Promise!

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Ok, so I got tagged and it's Friday. Here we go:
List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if theyÂ’re not any good, but they must be songs youÂ’re really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what theyÂ’re listening to.

This I can do.  They're not really  "new" by any stretch, but they are the ones I've been listening to and thinking about...

1. "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" -- Barenaked Ladies

Don't the hours grow shorter as the days go by
You never get to stop and open our eyes
One minute you're waiting for the sky to fall
The next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all
Lovers in a dangerous time

These fragile bodies of touch and taste
This fragrant skin this hair like lace
Spirits open to the thrust of grace
Never a breath you can afford to waste
Lovers in a dangerous time

Find me and follow me through corridors
Refectories and files you must follow
Leave this academic factory
You will find me in the matinee, the dark of the matinee
It's better in the matinee
The dark of the matinee is mine, yes it's mine

One, two boys by the river
Down by the water
Tellin' riddles in the dark
With fireflies under the moonlight
Carvin' the insides of a tree with a knife
Ever hear the one about the boy's big sister
His best friend come along
He tried to kiss her
The only difference
That I see
Is you are exactly the same
As you used to be..

We would stand in the wind
We were free like water
Flowing down
Under the warmth of the sun
Now it's cold and we're scared
And we've both been shaken
Look at us
Man, this doesn't need to be the end

Just let me hold you while you're falling apart
Just let me hold you so we both fall down

Fall on me tell me everything you want me to be
Forever with you
Forever in me
Ever the same

Where does the heart reside
If not where I lay my head?
I could run but I'm petrified
And choose this instead
Again and again

Destruction leads to a very rough road
But it also breeds creation
And earthquakes are to a girl's guitar
They're just another good vibration
And tidal waves couldn't save the world
From Californication

I was so high I did not recognize
The fire burning in her eyes
The chaos that controlled my mind
Whispered goodbye and she got on a plane
Never to return again
But always in my heart

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Someone's been drinking the Kool Aid. In fact, a couple of someones.

Let's start with Charlie Rangel, who once slammed President Bush by saying"[H]e has shattered the myth of white supremacy once and for all."

And then there's Nancy "Botox Babe" Pelosi, who once called him "...a man ... who [has] consistently failed to lead our country on the most pressing issues."

Well, today Rep. Rangel blasted Hugo Chavez of Venezuela for attacking President Bush and calling him the "devil". Hot Air has the video.

This from the man who openly supports Hugo Chavez' best amigo, fidel castro (begins halfway through the clip):

Interestingly, Rangel has backpedaled, issuing a statement that what he takes issue with is merely Chavez' "personal" attack on the President. Yeah, right, Charlie. Keep digging. See quote above.

Or how about this one from Nancy herself: "[his] capacity to lead has never been there. In order to lead, you have to have judgment. In order to have judgment, you have to have knowledge and experience. He has none,'' Where was Charlie for this one?

Rep. Pelosi joined in the fun too. Calling Chavez a "thug", she blasted Chavez for "abusing the privilege" of speaking at the U.N. Ha! She's defending a man she believes is "an incompetent leader. In fact, he's not a leader, he's a person who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide upon.'"

Hypocrite much?

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This study came out recently, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.  Ok, that's wrong.  On the face, without having read the actual text yet, I disagree with [the media's presentation of] it ENTIRELY.

You see, there's a very important factor that either they've overlooked or the media has chosen not to report....

Let me explain:

First of all, I want to make it clear that I've never experienced that kind of discrimination personally.  As an undergrad, while Caltech had 4 times as many males on campus as females, the Bio department was almost 50-50.  In graduate school, out of about 30 students in my program, 6 were guys.  My advisor was female, too.  So was her postdoctoral advisor.

Here, half of my department is female, including our chair.

But on to my main point:

One thing the study doesn't seem to consider is that women often PREFER to opt out of the higher academic jobs because of the demanding schedule.  We CHOOSE to remain in a comfortable lab, where our schedule is more flexible, we can work with the people we choose to work with, and we have time to be ourselves and actually SEE our families.

This is the elephant in the living room.  Academic Science has many of them.

Sure, a lot of women who are Dr. Shalala's age and even up to 20 years younger had to deal with chauvinist pigs and glass ceilings and all that.  They had to CHOOSE between a career and a family.  Women scientists of MY generation can have both, and are frequently choosing personal fulfillment over professional, in many cases.  I did.  That's why I teach, rather than pursuing a traditional academic career track.

What these older chickies can't stand is the rearrangement of priorities in younger female scientists.  They hate it that we wouldn't follow them blindly through the glass ceiling, that we can stop about a foot lower and say "Thanks, I'm good."  That we refuse to blaze their trail just because it's there.

I'm not naive enough to say that discrimination DOESN'T exist. However, that doesn't mean that gender-based discrimination is the ONLY reason why women don't get the highest jobs in academic science and engineering. And it's naive of THEM to say otherwise.

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Arrrgh!  It be Talk Like a Pirate Day!

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As some of you may know, I felt like shit last night.  On top of
whacking my head sunday night, the sinuses on the other side decided it
was time to play catch-up, including a sore throat.  Well, nothing
worked, and even the damn chloraseptic wore off too soon, so I asked hubby
to go out and get us milkshakes to fix my throat.  He got back about 10, just
in time to put on the news, right?


I get about halfway through my milkshake, look up, and there's
John Fucking FlipFlopper KetchupBoy spewing about how his religion
makes him who he is and how that should be important to everyone at
some speech he gave at Pepperdine (he was really in town to raise $$
for Angelides....)


I DID NOT throw my milkshake at the TV.  It was hard.  I DID
manage to grab the remote and change the channel, though.  But my hands
were shaking and I had to actually tell myself to put down the cup and
get the remote.


Hubby said he was proud of me.  Probably because he would have had to clean it up.....

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To BlogSis Mrs_Who!

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I think I've got a concussion.

I was sitting at the base of our stairs because it's a good place to watch TV and talk on the phone (to this lovely lady, my homeboy, and then my Mom last night, actually).  It's far enough away from the TV that it's not blaring into the phone, but directly across from the screen.  Plus the carpet is pretty nice.  Nicest carpet we've ever had, in fact.

So I was chatting away with Mom and the Princess decided to favor me with one of her toys.  Not thinking clearly, I leaned over to pick it up, and then sat up to toss it for her.

When I sat up, I brought the top of my head into direct contact with the bottom end of the handrail of the stairs at full speed.

You know the little birdies on the Warner Brothers' cartoons?  Yeah, I saw those.

Anyway, after about 30 minutes of ice and two Advil, I was ok, but this morning I'm sore all over and the headache?  She refuses the Advil and caffeine treatment.  I've had post concussion syndrome before (dropped on my head in college), so I know the drill.  At least it's just a regular headache, not a migraine, although even my damn teeth hurt.

Now it's just a matter of sitting here two hours and then driving home.  Yay, home.  Maybe I'll bugger off early.  I do have things I need to work on at home....

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