Just in Case You Were Not Sure, Heath Insurance Companies are Evil

I finally got my flu shots! Hurah! Thats the good news, because vaccines work bitches!

Now for the stupid crazy news. Blue Shield didn't pay for it! Thus shattering any illusions I ever had about health insurance being about health. It is in-fact about money, money and nothing else.

Of all the things that health insurance can and should pay for vaccinations should be at the top of the list. Imagine a short, nearly painless procedure that can prevent you from getting influenza. Well imagine no longer, such a miracle treatment exists. It's called the flu shot. The CDC says "the vaccine can reduce the chances of getting the flu by 70% to 90% in healthy adults" Wow, that's amazing! Where can I get me some?

I got mine at the Safeway Pharmacy, it took about 5 minutes including the paperwork. It cost a measly (no pun intended) $45 and I'll be protected from both H1N1 and the seasonal flu for the rest of the season which is peaking around now.

It seems like a cost-effective miracle cure when stacked up against needing to take a sick day off from work, and yet most insurance (according to the pharmacist) wont cover it. What kind of messed up world do we live in where a treatment to prevent a potentially fatal disease isn't covered by health insurance. Or is it just this country....

Beating a Dead Horse: Laserblast

It's probably redundant to write about the failings of a film that's earned the attention of Mystery Science Theater 3000, but has something as the blindingly obvious ever stopped me before? In deference to the brilliance of MST3K, I will try to focus on aspects of this film that were missed by the missives of our beloved robots and meat-sack companion.

Laserblast is an amazing tour-de-force of bad direction. Even if you assume that the acting was a horrible mishap involving a group ether overdose, and the writing was a miscommunication that resulted in a complete lack of plot, there are still areas that merit criticism.

But before I dig into details, let me make the following clear. To date, I have not yet produced, edited, or directed a film that was seen by more than my immediate friends and family. However, given this caveat, I am confident in making the following points, as it is true that, if I were to make such a hypothetical film, I would never make these kind of mistakes.

1. Under no circumstances allow the editor to circumvent some critical plot point. When the protagonist, Billy, discovers the laser cd-player-cuisinart-combo-laser-weapon, there is a huge amount of emphasis put on his donning of the amulet enabling his use of the laser arm gun thing, make sure the shots are edited so that he has it on after that action. As these monkeys shot it, he puts on the amulet, discovers he can blow shit up, and then proceeds to blow shit up with the amulet still in hand, not on his neck. Never mind that the neck band on the amulet would scarcely fit over his head.
2. Have a clear hero and villain. Billy, who is undoubtedly the central character, is also the villain. The aliens who were hunting the unnamed character at the beginning of the movie/Billy's dream who dropped the laser-arm-rifle-disk-changer-leaf-blower are ambiguously benevolent. When Billy seems like an innocent victim of circumstance, then those aliens hunting him (probably, we're not given subtitles to decode their monosyllabic dialog) are assumed to be bad guys. However, when Billy is overtaken by the amulet (whose origin is still unknown), Billy is assumed to be the bad guy. This means when the conveniently composited stop-motion aliens appear and kill him, they must be the good guys. The final shot with the heroine and Billy is lost, as we're not sure whether we should have been rooting for the turtlesque aliens, or the badly written Billy. At least the aliens accomplish something. And besides, I've seen them before.
3. Use mystery to build suspense. They made a point of Billy's weird amulet-induced "unearthly"-but-presumed-metallic carbunckle, but rather than explain the origin of the amulet, crazy-laser-gun-blender-thing, or the guy from that opening scene, they just assume the audience will make the connection. That is, assuming, that the connection is between hallucinogens and the writing staff
4. Being an hour an a half long does not make you a feature film. Laserblast employed an innumerable quantity of unexplained extended shots that did nothing to carry the plot. The MST3K crew pointed this out a couple of times, including when they were "watching a character waiting for another character" for over 30 seconds. If your script is justifiably 45 minutes, and you try to stretch it, the audience will know. Only make an hour and a half film if you have an hour and a half worth of content. It doesn't have to be good content, but forcing 45 minutes to fill twice that time is going to make your movie feel awkwardly paced and tedious. It's not just MST3K that will notice these unnecessarily long scenes, I assure you.

There's a chance I learn as much about making movies from crap films as I do from the classics. Perhaps Laserblast has more to teach a film student than Titanic, in the end. Nevertheless, even a student can identify where MST3K decided to buy the undoubtedly cheap rights to this steaming pile.

Experiment with Coconut Milk!

I love coconuts - especially when they're standing in a row. So, I thought - I like coconut peanut sauce... I like peanut butter cookies... hmm - let's try coconut peanut butter cookies! But, the flaked coconut or shredded coconut would not maintain the same awesomeness that is peanut butter cookies. I had an idea - Coconut milk! I could substitute coconut milk for some or all of the butter in the cookies, still get the fat - but I'd lose several calories per cookie and the cholesterol too, which for those of us watching our weight is fantastic.

Now, I knew coming into this that coconut milk ~= butter, but hey - I can run a baking experiment to see HOW right?

Conclusion, replaced 1/2 cup of butter with 1/2 cup of coconut milk + 1 Tbsp butter. Result tastes great, but they feel squishy like a sponge when you pick them up and they're like little cakes when you bite into them. Awesome, 'cause if those were switched they would have gone in the trash.

These are a tasty little experiment - and now we know, if you want little cakes to eat with your tea and biscuits you can swap out butter for coconut milk and have a tasty cake of your choice! I'm sure I'll try this again, 'cause the result was not a failure - just a learning experience.

Enjoy!

GEICO: Get the gecko away from the keyboard

I've had Geico auto insurance for as long as I've driven automobiles. They give me a discount for my loyalty.

But I've run into a snag today that makes me wonder... is it loyalty, or gullibility?

Don't get me wrong, I've never had a problem with their actual coverage, but it's 2010, and to me, that sounds futuristic. If I live in the future, I demand the ability to manage my accounts online.

The following is a bitchrant list of ways they've failed to provide what I'm demanding:

1. TECTONIC SITE: It's difficult for me to even get to the other issues, as it takes me several minutes to get from one section of the site to another. I'm not even kidding, the average pageload has been over 20 seconds, per click. I wanted to correct a typo in my address, and eventually called them with a telephone.


2. Bad user interface design: When you manage to survive the wait, and see the output of a new quote (when you're adjusting coverage), it'll tell you the overall difference, and highlight the changed values in yellow. What's missing, however, is what they changed from. For this, they have a "view previous values" link or something, which refreshes the whole page, setting you back at ground zero. I had to open a second tab to actually be able to compare prices for the coverage changes I was considering. As a sometimes web designer, it made me cry.


3. Confusing shit:There's this coverage that will pay you if you're hit by an uninsured driver, but not if they're unidentified... like... say... if this uninsured driver took off. Not that this would ever happen, right? So, this coverage is for "pays damages you are legally entitled to recover because of damage to your insured vehicle caused by uninsured motorists." Your options are:
   
   
   1. Not currently carried
   
   
   2. I decline this coverage
   
   
   3. I reject this coverage
   
   
   4. $3500
   
   
   
   So... I can choose to not carry this coverage. I can also choose to decline the right to receive damages I'm legally entitled to recover, so maybe that's my way of being super-nice to Geico, letting them avoid some legal obligation or something. Then, I can reject coverage, as if I objected to the very offer of such disgusting, basal coverage. How DARE they?. Oh, and $3500.
   
   Let me make this very clear:
   
   


4. Idiotic Session Handling: It's a good idea to have your users automatically logged out after a certain amount of time, for safety. That is... when they're inactive. Geico's wondermonkey developers set it up to time you out no matter what the fuck you're up to. Good luck actually comparing coverages when they've got the amazing combination of a site so slow it must be running on a toaster administered by a sedated monkey in a vat of cold molasses and sessions that just log you out without remorse. This is inexcusable.

In conclusion, if you're computer literate, consider other auto insurance providers. Otherwise, they're peachy!

Google Docs: Forever?

They say you don't need to worry about hard drive failure ever again. Corrupted files? A think of the past. The disbelievers said that there'd be no recourse if something went wrong. If the cloud lost your files, there'd be no backup. I laughed at them for their blasphemy against the Google. You can trust Google. They're here to save us.

The disbelievers were right. You can't trust the cloud. I just lost a Google Doc spreadsheet. It was important. Like, I could get sued for not keeping a copy important. Really.

I was using Google Docs. I was a big anti-microsoft guy, you see. Google could do no wrong, and betas were prone to bugs, but I forgave them. I bought a macbook, used firefox the rest of the time, and pushed for open source software at work. Microsoft was the devil, and I had to fight them.

Sure, Windows Vista got a pretty bad wrap the first go 'round, but Vista SP1... oh, sorry, I mean Windows 7 sounds pretty solid, even to a hardcore microsoft hater. DX10? Hot. But still, if I could get away from the archaic Office platform, I'd be all the better. And since Open Office installations are hit and miss, I started using Google Docs in a big way. I planned my wedding with Google Docs. I've brainstormed hypothetical names of my future children in Google Docs. I trusted Google Docs.

And so, you can understand how if I had a personal loan from a friend who helped me out when I was in a tough spot, I'd turn to Google Docs to record it. We wrote up the contract in Google Docs. I set up the payment schedule in Google Docs. I was updating the payment history on the spreadsheet in Google Docs. Then the docs were gone.

What happened? Well, I've emailed Google, but I don't expect a useful word back. I'm one of a billion users, after all. Here's my theory. My friend uses hotmail. His only gmail account was a work email through Google for Domain, the business accounts. When he got a new job and moved, they eventually got around to closing his account. This killed all of his documents in Google Docs...

Apparently, they've made some changes to the way files are shared with corporate accounts. I don't see ANY of the files I had shared with people at that company (where I have several friends). It looks like I was either blacklisted from them (being a former employee, parted on good terms), or they've locked off their business accounts from the world. That makes perfect sense for most files, given corporate espionage concerns regarding files created by their employees. Except...

This was MY file. I shared it to my friend's account. When they closed that account, my suspicion is that they killed or removed access to all files that account had write-access to. Including my loan paperwork.

I don't have backups. I trusted Google. After using Wave, I had an epiphany that they really were looking ahead, seeing the future, paving the way, even if the world's not ready. Now I have to reconsider. Maybe they're just another big, dumb corporation after all.

Google: Microsoft and Comcast are just now getting their shit together. Don't sink to their level. You created Gmail, and Maps, and Android. You're a hero to a lot of people. Watch the details. Sometimes, details matter.

NaNoWriMo Aftermath and Lessons

I did it! I produced a document that was over 50,000 words in November which might appear to be a novel if you don't look too close.

There were a lot of obstacles. They weren't these massive writer's block issues that other NaNoWriMoers have discussed. They weren't even issues of confidence regarding whether anyone would read my story, although that might be due to a bit of good advice early on.

No matter who you are, when you start writing your first draft, you're shy. You're a little worried about even sharing it with your closest friends, lest they discover how pathetic and flawed you are, and cast you out of the village. You know this is hyperbole, but you can't help it. Experienced NaNoWriMo writers will tell you to let the world know you're writing a novel, to help keep you going, to force you to actually do it.

There's another reason. Your friends are better editors than you realize. As long as you have the confidence to take their advice when you want to and ignore it when you don't, it's really helpful to have someone to bounce ideas off of.

For example, I had one person who helped me work out the logistics, economics, physics, engineering, and societal details of my world before I ever hit November 1st. He had the context, so when I needed to brainstorm a chapter, I had him to go to. His contributions have been so useful that when this thing is printed, he's a co-author credit. He wasn't reading along as I wrote everything, as that would slow me down, and as you all know, slowing down to edit is the death of a NaNoWriMo novel.

Rather, he helped me completely circumvent writer's block when ever the faintest shadow of it appeared. Rather than blocks, I'd encounter situations where I had more good ideas to use than I had pages and plots to use them in. It's a far more favorable situation, to be sure!

Now that the 50,000 word draft is done, I'm having several of my friends read it, and leave footnotes on the Google doc. Once they've gotten through it once, I'll make a copy of that, and start over, filling in all the details that were missed, all the plot holes that were overlooked, and fixing everything that was missing from the write-it-as-fast-as-you-can November version. Every one of these people has made useful comments, regardless of their background or skill set. They each brought a fresh perspective that illuminated some aspect of a scene or plot device that I hadn't considered. While I might not heed every suggestion, their input is an invaluable asset to my future drafts.

You know what I never heard from anyone? Discouragement. There are people I haven't talked to in years that would encourage me when they saw my progress posted to a Google Chat status or Twitter post, telling me that they couldn't wait to read a draft. Not a single person teased me for any reason. Not a single person belittled my amateur attempts at writing, and I have naturally collected a peer group of some very snarky and sarcastic folk. Not a single person gave me any reason to slow down, second guess myself, or give up. I didn't have to worry about whether or not writing amateur sci-fi is "cool". No matter how many times I told people I was "having fun writing terrible amateur sci-fi," everyone would encourage or congratulate me.

People aren't as judgmental as you think, I'll bet. And if I'm wrong, and one of your friends gives you a hard time instead of encouragement?

Screw 'em.

NaNoWriMo this year was my second attempt, and first success. It was huge amount of fun, and I encourage anyone to do it next year. The only thing that keeps you from succeeding at it is letting a draft sit. Getting a group of people excited to read your next draft is a hell of a good motivation, and keeps you excited too.

TED Talks - Dean Ornish on healing

TED is an organization devoted to spreading worthy ideas. Lectures from leading figures in the fields of technology, entertainment, and design are available for free at http://www.ted.com/.

My notes on this particular video are below, but it's well worth watching yourself!

Dean Ornish on healing
Dean Ornish talks about simple, low-tech and low-cost ways to take advantage of the body's natural desire to heal itself.

• Richard's straight notes on what was said,
  
  • and his own comments and observations

• Health and happiness go hand in hand.
• Health isn't something you get or achieve, it's something you lose.
  
  • Ornish sounded confusing on this point. I'd rather say that health isn't something you get or achieve, it's something you continually do. Consistency and continuity is key. You can't eat a salad on January 1st and then for the rest of the year tell people you "eat healthy." You either used to eat healthy, or you are eating healthy. Pick one.
• A strict diet and program is necessary for reversing disease, but if you just want to stay healthy you have a much wider range of options to achieve that goal.
  
  • This is a long-winded way of paraphrasing Mr. Franklin: "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
• Fortune Teller says, "I give smokers a discount because there's not as much to tell."
  
  • Haha.
• Fear of dying is not an effective motivator to compel most people to be healthy.
  
  • I think this is because life in our culture is actively and aggressively devalued. Religious and 'spiritual' beliefs are responsible for this, in my view. Why take your health in the here and now so seriously, when the after life/reincarnation/heaven/hell/Valhalla is just a few decades away?
• Fear of a lack of sex, however, is effective at persuading people to be healthier.
  
  • Religion figured this one out early. Religions achieve power over people now by focusing them on a future that never materializes, hence the hatred of sexuality at the root of most religious worldviews -- sex focuses people on the here and now, and if you're too focused on your life today, you're not as focused on your life in the ever-after. Islam goes one further -- free virgins after death!
• Almost no one wants to live longer, because living longer is associated with living miserably longer.
  
  • So, focus on living better, not longer. The longer will follow naturally.
• Lonely, depressed people are many times more likely to die early.
  
  • I need a hug!

Spam spiders: First Bite

A while back, I laid out some bait for spiders that might be parsing sites, looking for email addresses. I never really looked back, though, as after a couple weeks, I'd only gotten the most basic of spam, mostly offering tips on how to maximize my blog.

But I gave up too soon. Terry Johnson, a Senior Advertising Consultant with the Business Development Department of Topspot Promotions wanted to contact me. Well, sort of. They wanted to contact the webmaster of DarkTaco. Did this look like the place to get that email address?

Dear Webmaster,

I would like to inform you of an interesting opportunity for your website.

I am looking for reputable websites to support us in promoting our client's websites and I would be more than happy to send you more information about our proposal.

If you are interested, please let me know and I will be happy to inform you further.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Best,
Terry Johnson
Senior Advertising Consultant
Business Development Department
terry@topspot-promotions.com
http://www.topspot-promotions.com

If you do not respond to this email you will not receive any additional emails from TopSpot-Promotions.
To permanently delete yourself from our list, simply reply to this with a blank email and you will not receive any communication from us in the future.


0343

Dear Terry's name even appears on their site as a Promotion Manager. Maybe he/she was demoted since April. I'd like to point out that Terry is looking for "reputable websites." Look around. DarkTaco is many things, but something tells me he/she didn't read the post herself.

In any case, I am not judging them, nor making any claims about the company. I am merely demonstrating that there is good chance that Topspot Promotions utilizes spiders to scan websites for email addresses they can contact. Some might call this spam, but not me. I'm content with merely using the name Topspot Promotions and the word "spam" in the same post a few times, and letting the spiders figure it out.

Dear Comcast:

I spend more money per month on my internet connection than I do on fuel for my car, and I have a long commute. There are a few things we need to get straight regarding our relationship, if it's going to continue.

First, I'm upset because I don't really have an alternative. DSL is crap, and you know it. Satellite connections are crap, and you know it. You don't have a real competitor for real broadband internet access, and you're taking unfair advantage of that. At least AT&T has Verizon, to keep them from getting completely out of hand. You are a pseudo-monopoly, and I hate that. This might be more of a regulatory issue, as it's your job as a for-profit entity to make as much as you can, so let's move on.

Second, if I have a problem with my connection and call a line that claims to be open, answer the damn phone. I don't care how many people you have to pay to do so, make it happen. There is absolutely no reason that I should have to wait to speak to someone more than five minutes. I don't care if it's the goddamn appocolypse. I pay too much for this kind of treatment. It took me 20 minutes before I gave up on the phone, and another 15 to get someone on chat. If this is simply arithmetically impossible, then implement one of those "the current wait to speak with a representative is currently... FOURTEEN... minutes" messages to intermix with the "We appreciate your patience. Please continue holding. Our account executives are still assisting other customers."

Third, if I do have to call, do NOT take advantage of my status as a captive audience to ADVERTISE to me before you even give me the first menu. That's rude, and unacceptable. While I'm on hold after the menus is annoying, but not unacceptable, for example. If you ARE going to be rude and unacceptable, then get rid of Ben Stein. I don't need to be reminded that this vapid, mindless cancer on the ass of humanity still draws breath, and I certainly don't want any of my money getting into his hands via an advertising deal with you. Keep Shaq, I don't care, but get rid of the scum sucking Intelligent Design floozy, or we're going to have problems.

Fourth, don't tell me to visit your website for trouble shooting tips when I called regarding MALFUNCTIONING INTERNET. This is too stupid for words.

Fifth, the problem isn't my router. I promise. Has it been the last forty times I've had to call? No? It's a pattern, figure it out. The modems die like flies. Trust me. See, what did I tell you, it was the modem... again. Now that we've established that it's my modem... it's the third in 16 months. I'll pay twice as much on the modem lease for the good stuff. I know you've got it back there somewhere. These paperweights have got to go.

Get these things resolved. Or what? I don't know, because you don't really have a competitor where I live. Baby Uncle Sam weeps for competitive capitalism because of companies like you. At least till I can tether a Droid, then I might dump AT&T and you at the same time.

Delicious Shrimp with Lime Sauce

Simple. Quick. Easy.

Shrimp with homemade butter lime sauce, on top of a rice mountain shaped with tupperware.



Elegant dining at home!



The sauce is ~1 lime worth of juice per person, boiled at medium high heat until reduced, and then ~1 tablespoon of butter per person stirred into the pot, maybe a bit less. The sauce makes the rice and the CostCo. shrimp taste ever so much better.

So delectable, I had to share it on the internet, for I derive a great deal of culinary inspiration from the Web!