GimpyGamer: Favorite Nerd Resources

I have some ideas for little articles when I am sick or busy, and this one is sharing resources I use and why I like them. Hopefully these will either be useful or at least only minimally annoying! This post is not all inclusive, feel free to bring your own perfect nerd resources and leave them in the links for all of us to share in the awesome!


Right now I have a couple of posts brewing, one all ready to go except that I do not have a good name for the thing the post is helping us make!


This post's theme is nerddom. I am a gigantic nerd about a handful of things: movies, Halo, Mass Effect, Portal, Halo, Minecraft, Bioshock, the Whedon 'Verse, and of course, Halo - to name just a few. As I write this, I am losing hours, because I needed to get caught up on several of these sites!


Movie Bob 
Movie Bob is a big nerd of both geek culture and movies, so his reviews tend to parallel our thoughts after seeing a film, so he is the perfect movie reviewer for us! (Movie Bob is my guilty secret, because I have to go to Escapist to see his stuff - see Extra Creditz for more...)


We Nerd Hard
WNH is part of the This Week in Blackness BCCo Studios media empire, and is scheduled to make a come back next week (5/23/12). They cover tech trends, new gadgets, anime, current nerd media (Game of Thrones, anyone?), and gaming. If you have not, you should check them out!


Geek Feminism
GF kicks it old school, but with the understanding that social justice can influence our whole lives, especially our nerd endeavors. You will find topics like programming and sexism, gamer geek culture and LGBTQIA equality, and general geek commentary from a humanist, social justice perspective. Geek Feminism is useful, funny and poignant.


The Digitized Ramblings of an 8bit Animal
If you like to blow on your games before you play them, then this Southern gentleman is for you! Seriously, though, he covers a lot of modern releases with a sensibility I appreciate quite a bit. The only difficulty with 8bit's site is that most of the entries are videos without transcripts.


Border House
I love this blog. This is one of the few places where a geek can go to get informed on gaming culture while knowing that each piece will have a understanding of inter-sectional life in the real world. This was the one stop place for news on FemShep, and I love them even more for it!


Go Make Me a Sandwich
GMMaS recently moved to Word Press, so the above link is the new one. Posts are not regular anymore, but the writing is a resource too good not to mention. Now the action is at Gaming As Woman. If you want to know how some marketing and writing can come across to women that game, you need go no further than this site. I highly recommend it. Look for the series about female avatars/characters and armor/dress.


Nerdgasm Noir Network
Here is special treat for you, because NNN has multiple shows: Nerdgasm Noir, Character Select, and Operation Cubicle. You can watch the NNN live if your schedule allows, and it is a great time! There are eight or nine folks bringing the awesome here, and they are well worth the time.


Extra Creditz
Extra Creditz is a video series by a trio of game culture, study and production devotees. Their motto is "Because Games Matter." Come here to explore and learn. They cover everything from game pacing and how, at it's best it mirrors other art forms that garner far more wide spread critical acclaim.


Nerdist
Nerdist used to be just Chris Hardwick, but now he has a crew of awesome! I really wish that crew was more diverse, but I think that giving Felicia Day and Harwick a chance to make that happen will pay off for us. Hardwick is a comedian, geek, and pop culture maven.


Wil Wheaton
Wheaton is a great example of someone that has been around since e-mail addresses had things like in them and took as long as snail mail. He is doing great things out here, and I think you should take a look. He is a great resource for nerd culture in general and specifically things like pop culture, gaming, and brewing.


Halo Waypoint
This is where I go to get my official Halo news. There are tons of well done fan sites, but if I start down that rabbit hole this will become a "Great Halo Sites" article, and while that would be awesome, it is not what I am trying to do right now.


ThinkGeek
This is where we go for almost all of our geek shopping needs. From some laptop peripherals to an Aperture Laboratories shower curtain, the house is full of stuff from ThinkGeek. Also, they have a bonus point program and they make it easy to spend those points. On the few occasions (over years, mind you, and purchases any time we were flush) we had a problem with a product, they were very responsive and nice while fixing it!


Jinx
If ThinkGeek does not have what I am looking for, then Jinx is my very next stop. Special mention should go to their huge amount of Minecraft gear and toys. They also have a "leveling up" system, but I have no experience with it.


Minecraft Home Design
This series, along with the Medieval Minecraft building series, are so helpful in learning how to build what you want to build rather than just what you think you can throw together before you get 'asploaded! So if this is your thing, be sure to check out Durandal of Aegis.

SmartAss Recommended Reading (Part Two)

Hello, again, Gentle Reader. When writing Recommended Reading, I realized that the post had become far too long and unwieldy for one entry. So I broke it off midstream and decided to make it a series of posts – which will also allow me to share sites as I find them.

All previous caveats about linkage stated in Part One still apply.

Ill Doctrine (hip hop only occasionally touches me, but) Jay Smooth is wonderful: candid, smart, and painfully genuine at times.

Tricycle – I am leaning towards Buddhism right now, but there is a large amount of work that is good general advice for living on Tricycle, no matter what your calling. And please, do not worry - while I may talk about my own learning or development, I would never push any religion on you, Dear Reader - just as I would not want one pushed on me.

While FWD/Feminists with Disabilities is no longer posting new content, there is a lot of good stuff to be found there, and I cannot recommend their archives highly enough.

The Border House and The Hathor Legacy make great geek reading, and there is always Geek Feminism. These are some of the smartest sites out there.

G4 has a lot of great stuff, particularly Sessler’s Soapbox and the MMO Report (although I do not play MMOs at the moment). I also enjoy their round-table show, Feedback. I will not recommend many truly commercial web sites, but these efforts are worth spending time on, in my opinion.

On the news front, here are the web pages for my favorite commentary shows: The Maddow Blog, and The Last Word. Of course, I occasionally check in at Mediaite for news gossip. And now we catch Countdown on CurrentTV. 

Leave your own great reads, or your own great writings in the comments section!

Quantum Sorcery: A little magic with your science?

Quantum Sorcery: A little magic with your science?:

"I realized that most of my posts have been little more than science news links thus far, so I shall now remedy this imbalance. Here is a m..."

This is a friends blog, but I love it none-the-less. If you are interested in quantum science, or quantum sorcery, go here. And buy his book. I helped with the early editing, so there is a little bit of me in there somewhere! Grin.

You know, I an going to build a post of friends that write great things, although few will be related to my topics of disability, health, attitudes, able-ism, and social justice. You have been warned!

SmartAss Recommended Reading (Part One)

When I was writing this post, I talked about some of the web sites I visit. I thought it would be good to share with you some more of the folks that I let into my brain pan whenever I have adequate ability to absorb information (sometimes solid, sometimes that ability can elude me). Here, in no particular order, are more works I enjoy, find edifying, or within find fellowship – you may want to seek them out too!

Warning: the below links contain rational thought and a penchant for social justice. You will be exposed to people of all genders, many races, and many schools of thought if you click on the below links.

Gratuitous warning for all SmartAss Recommended Reading: including a link below does not mean I endorse every piece on each web site. You know that, but I wanted to spell it out. I know that some blogs have done some questionable things – some have risen above, learned and grown; some, maybe not so much. That is what it means to be a whole person – to learn and grow and be better. But even then, I read the things that strike me as right-minded and take the few mistakes as object lessons.

Womanist Musings
Shakesville
Tiger Beatdown
This Ain’t Living
Red Vinyl Shoes
Yes Means Yes
Wheelchair Dancer
Flip Flopping Joy
Geek Feminism
The Angry Black Woman
Disability Voices

And of course, SexGenderBody, with a fantastic blogroll I am happy to join.

I enjoy a lot of reading, when my brain will let me.

Leave your own great reads or your own great writings in the comments section!

SmartAss Commentary: Liberal Crip Goes to the Gun Show

The Indy 1500 has a terrible web page – there is very little you can do there but find out the dates of upcoming shows, sign up for a mailing list and $1 off $10 admission, and see some photos of previous shows. However, it is a decent show as far as I can tell. I had a decent time there. I want to talk about my own gun history, some of the social issues at the gun show, and the accessibility for people with disabilities.

I should probably spell a few things out here before we get started. I am a Second Amendment liberal. I believe in both state protection via police and sheriff departments and self defense. I find the arguments about the intent of the Second Amendment to be more semantic than practical. When the Bill of Rights was created, the gun was simply a tool of survival in early American culture, as in many others. Small, unfunded local defense militias depended on each member to have their own arms. They did, both for hunting and defense. So I find that if a person has a solid answer to the separation of militia and culture – that answer may well be their opinion on the matter rather than a historical fact.

I grew up around gun folks. My mom’s first husband (my adoptive dad or ADad*), her father and several of her brothers all served in the military. The first gun stories I heard were from ADad as he explained the AK scar he acquired in Vietnam. He was shot in the shoulder by a [enemy combatant – I will not use the word he used] and he returned fire, killing the man. My mother was very anti-gun. My grandfather and multiple uncles were enlisted military men. My husband was a military kid, and very comfortable with guns. My boyfriend grew up in a rural social network that was also very easy with firearms – his father was a police officer and is now a correctional officer.

I am intimidated by guns. I am also proficient in their use. I am not a pleasure shooter – you know, the folks that can relax by going to the range for an hour. I cannot get away from their purpose. When aiming at a target, all that is on my mind is why I would be doing this for real – to end the life of another living being. The moral weight and sadness of that is always on my mind if a gun is around. There is no pleasure for me in being able to put six forty-four caliber bullets in a three inch diameter circle.  I can, and do, shoot very well. I hope to never actually need to do so. I do have fun with AirSoft weapons, though – they shoot soft BB-type ammunition powered by gas or springs or batteries.

Now that you know some of my gun history, time for the gun show! (Do I kiss my wimpy biceps here? Probably not…)

Admission was $10, you received a $1 off coupon if you were on their mailing list. Security appeared heavy, but was actually very light. Police were all over the place, as security and patrons. Loaded weapons were not permitted, although we were simply asked if we had any. D had a pistol that needed the sights repaired, and he was directed by the ticket takers to a booth where his pistol was strategically fitted with plastic zip strips to prevent it from being useable. If a patron was found to be carrying a firearm without this treatment, the penalty was immediate ejection from the premises.

Recording devices were not allowed. Although that made writing this piece much more difficult, I followed the rule. Honestly, other than catching someone in the act and ejecting them, there seemed to be no other way of enforcing that rule in this day and age of cell phone cameras, PDAs, and micro cameras.

The building itself (a part of the Indiana State Fairgrounds) was perfectly accessible. Accessibility issues included florescent lights, no scent policy, lots of random noise (no, no gunfire, except on the soundtracks of some videos being shown), and no quiet areas. While some of the table-made aisles are more narrow than others they are still passable in my manual wheelchair… except when some jerk vendor decided they need to set out yet more product, and pushed out over the ends of their tables, or shoved their long gun cases 6-12 inches out into the walk way, or put up spinning displays that eat half of the available aisle space. Arg! 

TL;DR: the building and the planning covered some accessibility basics, but some of the vendors were terrible about it!

There were several areas where one could buy snacks and drinks. Two were permanent booths, and one was more of an open café - larger with displays and seating.

Not every person at the gun show is straight off of People of WalMart. Most folks are dressed in casual middle class or rural attire. The clear majority of attendants were white males. Attendants that appeared to be African American or women were not the majority, but were numerous enough to not be surprising - which may surprise some of you. Obviously disabled folks like me were numerous in chairs or scooters, and there were a comforting amount of cane-users.  A lot of families were in attendance. The vendors were overwhelmingly male, around middle-aged and white.

I have never been to a gun show that did not have some vendors peddling hate. I have spent entire gun shows feeling like I would get shot if I talked about my politics. I was really surprised at the small amount of hate on sale at this gun show. While one pro Nazi booth is too many, there was only one at the show. I saw maybe three booths with small collections of Nazi memorabilia. I sat and stared at the Nazi booth for a while, dumbfounded. This booth was shoved into a corner where it was easily avoided, we almost missed it. They had mouse pads, t-shirts, bumper stickers, jewelry and accessories.

There was a lot less First Nations appropriation than I expected from my previous experience. The generalized, white washed “Native American Aesthetic” is very popular among the survivalist, hunter, preparedness, and gun cultures. There was one booth that was using a dream catcher motif to raise money for disabled children to enjoy outdoor sports and experiences, I think.

Of course, there was a Tea Party presence, but far less than I had feared. One vendor had walls of vitriolic bumper stickers accusing President Obama of just about every thing you can imagine. Someone had passed around flyers I saw at several booths with showed a picture of the President and the First Lady saying “I’m with stupid.” There was one booth selling anti-UN pins, copies of the national and state constitutions with wild interpretations of them. I have copies of them, and may write about those booklets specifically at some point.

 

You have not really thought this stance through, have you?

(Picture description:  a small, round lapel pin or button showing the blue UN emblem, surrounded with a red circle and divided by a red line from upper right to lower left. The intended message is clearly "NO UN.")

As a liberal, all the hate, appropriation and ignorance made me feel threatened, angry, sad, and deeply uncomfortable. Parts of it were like walking back into the Bush administration, were disagreement was equated with treason and only violent, blind patriotism was an acceptable response to any slight at all. But it was much, much better than my previous experiences at gun shows. I do not think that some improvement is enough, to be sure. It does make me happy to see improvement though, and I want to encourage that improvement.

I did not patronize the hate-booths, and still felt fairly free to shop. I picked some targets for AirSoft practice, some great medical stuff (a brass mortar and pestle, glass bottles and tubes, and first aid supplies), two really well priced pieces of luggage, and some camping supplies. I did pick up some of the materials, including the more fantastic stuff to share with you. This included a flyer for an organization that is fighting for you to keep your right to .50 cartridges, an application for the Sons of Confederate Veterans (yes that is exactly what you think it is), the Indiana Citizens Volunteer Militia, advertisements for NRA courses and retreats, flyers for militaria shows, Indiana Gun Owners pamphlets, and material on the Oath Keepers…

*I have a total of three dads: my biological father, or BDad; my mother’s first husband who adopted me when I was five, ADad, and my mother’s second husband (now divorced), ExSDad (ex-step-dad). Also, my mother’s first husband remarried, so I also have a step-mom out there, SMom. Of the five, ExSDad and I have the best relationship, and he is the one I would call in an emergency.

Now Playing at SexGenderBody!

Great news, I have been invited to blog at SexGenderBody.com. You can see my introductory post there, and I invite all of you to take a good gander at the content over there. I am greatly pleased to be among the number of amazing bloggers under the name SexGenderBody.

Most often, I will post here and reblog there, but when I write things more explicitly about sexuality, it may get posted there with an announcement here.

As I see it, you own me no favors – you do me a great service just by reading me, an even further one when you respond via comments or whatnot. It is with this in mind that I ask you to take some of your valuable time to check out SexGenderBody.com – it is well worth it.

Edit: feel free to see my intro here!

To Violently Induce Empathy

I originally wrote this in May, 2010, when I felt particularly injured by people in my life that just were not getting it. I think that acknowledging when I feel like a bitter, embattled bad crip is important. While I was busy drawing analogies, I lost site of how violent this post really is, so you have been warned.

Originally posted elsewhere on May 7, 2010

I needed to get this out of my head.

Some days I am almost fine. I get up early, I get stuff done, maybe I go out, and maybe I fuck. These days are rare.

Some days I am incapable of almost anything. I stay in bed, or turn the couch into my bed, and veg out to news so I do not feel totally disconnected from everything. I do not fuck with anything on these days, nor do I appreciate getting fucked with by anyone. I can barely move, I can barely read, I have almost no recall and can barely follow a conversation. If I am actually trying to do something while like this, then I place a great amount of importance on whatever that may be, and even then I will probably screw it up.

Most days I am somewhere in-between and either blow all my spoons far too early, or end up doing very little "in case" I need my spoons later that day.

Only if I place a great deal of trust in you will I tell you what kind of day today is when you ask "How are you?” I am so tired of being shut down by people that ask how I am but do not really give a damn.

I "pass" most of the time. People do not know I am disabled unless I tell them. Yes, even with the cane -- this is weird to me. So when I go out with the wheelchair it is almost always a gimp circus. People think that since I do not look disabled (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean!), that I must be faking or something. Fates forbid I actually stand up out of my chair for any reason.

I am tired of being a "good cripple."

Don't touch my wheelchair without gaining my permission first. Do not imply it must be nice to "sit around" everywhere. Yes, I can make those jokes, and you can laugh when I do if you want to laugh. Do not explain to me how good I have it, or how bad you feel for me. Just like I do not get to appropriate the experiences of a person with Autism, you do not get to appropriate mine with lupus/SLE and chronic pain (and SI joint dysfunction, and compressed disks, and non-specific brain damage, and...). Do not lecture me about my behavior, my drugs, or my coping mechanisms. Do not excuse places that are not accessible to me, or accessible to the people that society has labeled the same as me.

Do not "congratulate" me when I am not in the chair. I know you mean well, but just stop it. I may be having a good day, or I may be someplace that simply would not accommodate what I actually need that day.

Do not tell me you know "how I feel" unless you really want to. While there would be no complete equivalent, I could give it my best effort...

I cannot fuck with your genes to make your body attack itself, but I can take a baseball bat to your chest, your lower spine, your SI joint. If it is a rainy day or the weather fronts are changing, I will just wail on every joint you have from your knuckles to your toes to your spine. I will wrap your head in batting so tight that the very thought of light in your eyes will make you cry. I will stuff your ears so that you can barely hear, and cannot make sense of the things you do hear -- only later to remove it all and subject you to such noise that you long for the stuffing. I will knock your legs out from under you when you try to walk, move everything so that it is just out of reach, and recite long numbers as you try to remember your address or someone's birthday or phone number.

I will alienate your friends and family, canceling important events without notice or apparent cause. If they will not come see you, then fuck them because that is the only way you will socialize most of the time. I will make you doubt yourself, the people around you, your ability to do or think a damn thing, and then make you feel bad for being angry about your situation. I may let you go out every once in a while, but I will fill that time with so much fear, doubt, and shame that you will wish you stayed home. Your doctors will become your only major contacts outside of your home, and even then I will not always let you go -- and only the really good ones will even listen to you, let alone believe you.

Whatever heaven you believe in help you if you dare shut me down and try to pretend everything is okay. I do not get to do that, so neither do you.

Most folks that will actually read this never have to worry about any of it. You are kind folks that express sympathy without pity, and accommodate without fanfare -- and as you can probably see, that means a lot to me. This just would not leave my head and I needed to rant.

On Race (with Fabulous Web Sites!)

First things first – I am white. I am super white. You can see blood vessels right through my sometimes nearly-translucent skin. Yes, sometimes I look like Rand McNally took LSD and decided to get into body painting. I am a shade of white sometimes referred to lovingly as “fish-belly white.”

I am anti-racist.

I am also a recovering racist.

Now, I did not have any of that extra-stupid obvious racism. I was not raised that way, contrary to numerous efforts by my mother’s first husband. (To be honest, I think a lot of that was just to get a rise out of me. That does not change the fact that even being in a position to decide to use racism ironically is okay – it is a glaring sign of privilege.) I had relatives that I almost never saw because they tried to take my toddler self down to our town’s courthouse to attend a Klan meeting – and my mother was completely not okay with that. So I only saw them at family reunions, where they would do things like pass around stickers with an “obviously” African American silhouette enclosed by a circle with a line across it. Yes, some of them are the caricatures of human beings you think of when you think of the classic racist.

So, instead, I grew up virulently anti-racist instead. I can be contrary like that.

So, to even think of myself as a racist means thinking of me as one of those people. That is really, really uncomfortable. When I say I am a recovering racist I mean that I am always looking for and fighting those subtle (to a white person), pervasive pieces of meme that are always ready to steal and keep brain space. You know, the things you can think and still not actually consider yourself a racist: that positive stereotypes are okay, that if no one of a particular group is around then it is okay to smack talk them, that you “don’t see color,” that you got where-ever you are on effort and merit alone, that perhaps “previously” oppressed folks should just get over it and live in the supposed meritocracy of the now, that some people are now unfairly advantaged over white people, that now a days it is all about class (denying racism rather than acknowledging the intersections). I am always fighting the idea that white people are somehow the default, standard human being. This  is amazingly present once you notice it, white folks.

I recognize my race privilege.

I have had fights with people over “gypsy” stereotypes. I have walked away from unacceptable caricatures of people of Asian descent. I have cursed people out over generalizations regarding immigration. I live in a neighborhood with a proud African American history (the first in our county to “allow” black home ownership). My kids are sometimes the only white kids in their classroom. I do not ask the neighborhood moms about their hair, and do my best to answer their daughters when they ask about my daughters’ hair. I remind my husband that to the neighborhood teen boys, he is a stereotypical villain (over 40 white male, heavy, loud and blond). I do not do this for cookies – I do it because it is the right thing to do. 

I do it because it is the shit we should never have to do if we truly lived in a US that was not racist.

I am not perfect, and I will fuck up. Hell, I may have fucked up in this very entry. I am, and will be, working on it.

I spend a lot of time on this issue, and there are some places that I want to point you towards so you can too. I know that you cannot walk around all privileged and expect people to be willing to take time out to educate you – but there are folks that put terrific stuff out there, and I appreciate it so much.

Elon James White is amazing, and so is his crew at the Brooklyn Comedy Company. My daughters and I never miss an episode of This Week in Blackness. The BcCo podcasts are so wonderful that they draw a fantastic audience, too: Blacking It Up, the White House, and the JTMSCast.

Dammit, I am out of time to write for now, but I have to get posting again, so I plunge forward. Just know that I am not giving any of these folks the space or accolades that they are rightfully due!

I have read Racialicious for quite a while now, and they address so much that you better settle in and plan on spending some time there. You will leave a better, more educated person for it. I am new to Jack and Jill Politics, and they are really on top of all of today’s relevant news. They talk about a lot more than the intersection of race and politics, and do it all so very, very well. My most recently added must reads include Angry Black Lady Chronicles, which are amazing, and Angry Black Bitch, which is fantastic.

If any of you Dear Readers go to these sites – please use your manners.

Oh, and avoid articles about “black Twitter.” Seriously.

And hey, Team Voltron: shout-out to the chatroom!

HAWMC Day 2, Word of the Day

Word of the Day Post! Go to dictionary.com and write a post inspired by their WOTD – or grab a dictionary (or any book) from your bookshelf, open to a page, and write about that word. Can you link the word to your condition somehow?

Okay, I can do that!

I picked insidious.

–adjective

1. intended to entrap or beguile: an insidious plan.
2. stealthily treacherous or deceitful: an insidious enemy.
3. operating or proceeding in an inconspicuous or seemingly harmless way but actually with grave effect: an insidious disease.

I believe that the implications of insidious in relation to lupus to be plain. So if it is not, just imagine an invited guest that invites themselves into every aspect of your life, and is almost exclusively bad – very rarely neutral, never a beneficent presence. Every once in a while, your life may level out a bit; maybe even enough for you to think that your guest has perhaps gone away. Oh, no, your guest has simply been painting the exterior of your home a fragrant, organic shade of fresh feces.

Lupus/SLE is insidious.

SmartAss Protips: Eyeglass Donations

This is just a quick hit, because I needed to look this up myself today.

People that wear prescription glasses sometimes have this problem - after a couple of different sets, you have a stack of glasses you will never wear again. What do you do with them? They were costly, you do not want to throw them away. You hold on to your most recent old pair, in case your current ones break - or at least I do, having run into that before! But the rest? Especially if you are part of a family of glasses-wearers, they can stack up.


Well, there are plenty of people that can use your old glasses!


There are several organizations with many, many drop off locations for your used glasses. Some also take sunglasses or non-prescription reading glasses. So if you have old glasses, give them to a organization that will get them to people that need them locally to globally.

Lions Club
One Vision
New Eyes for the Needy



I am taking our old glasses to a library in Indianapolis, as they collect for the Lion's Club and we visit our neighborhood library often. 

If you know of other places that take eyeglasses donations, please leave their information in a comment. Thank you!

SmartAss Commentary: Niaspan Commercials

Niaspan

Oh, how I loathe these commercials for Niaspan. Have you seen these? Wow, these pieces of passive-aggressive, sly, guilt-ridden pabulum are just stunning.

Here is the “brother” version. There is at least one more, but I cannot find a link for it. It is not quite as bad, but still not good. Scratch that, there are three total, and they can be found on the Niaspan homepage here.

I find these commercials to be full of coddling, wheedling, coercive, bullshit. It is hard enough to manage a chronic illness/injury/disability – we really do not need to be badgered by our friends and family. I think the idea that these are “interventions” kind of trivializes the actual purpose of an intervention, you know – giving a loved one a chance to stop and think about what they are doing to themselves and the people around them. To let them know that they are loved and supported, and that this will still be true if they try to change their lives for the better. It is usually reserved for exceptionally destructive behavior.

Take the brother commercial – the speaking brother is chastising the audience brother about the fact that he is not taking Niaspan. Never mind the facts that the brother has made the diet and lifestyle changes that are necessary for his condition. Oh, no – he isn’t doing enough because he isn’t taking this pill! What if he is already taking niacin? Or what if he has a contra-indication, like liver trouble? The speaking brother apparently does not care. He has decided what is best, and damn anything else.

The daughter commercial does not specify what other changes the audience dad has made. But she is going out on an awfully long limb for something that “might” work.

The sister commercial is mind boggling. “I know one more pill… I get it, I do,” No she does not, or she would not follow that with, “I am not taking ‘no’ for an answer.” The gall on display is stunning. Of course she knows best, how it could be any other way is beyond her grasp.

These commercials are demeaning to health care customers. They play into the all-to-common assumption that we, as individual patients, are either too stupid or too lazy to consult with our doctors, do our own research, and make our own decisions.

If you do have a friend or loved on that is dealing with cholesterol issues, it is totally okay to offer your support. As with other health issues, save your advice for when you are asked for it. No, we do not want unsolicited advice – by definition. If we wanted it, we would seek it out and ask you.

While looking for links to the commercials themselves, I found some folks that despise this almost as much as I do at CommercialsIHate.

Niaspan on Wikipedia is here. (This entry is actually about Niacin. Niaspan is apparently prescription strength, time release Niacin.)

Things that Make My Life Easier: Online Rx Refills

“Things that make my life easier” was an idea from Amanda W., and she wrote about it at her home site, Three Rivers Fog. I read about her idea on FWD: Feminists with Disabilities (the site is still there, but is no longer producing new content, which is a shame and I will talk about that soon).

I think that the idea is a really good one, and I would like to lend a hand in helping to keep it alive. So here is my first PatientC: Things that Make My Life Easier!

I use a CVS. Our family has since we moved away from a really great family owned pharmacy. CVS has been convenient for us, and we have been pretty happy with them most of the time. I manage my own ‘scripts along with my husband’s and both our daughters. Unfortunately, that is a fair amount of pills, etc. Recently I have started streamlining our habits and trying to cut out time and effort that is ill-spent (relaxing or goofing off counts as time well spent, unless something else really needs to be done!). So I finally investigated the web site functions offered by CVS.

I could really kick myself for not doing this sooner! They offer prescription refills, transferring prescriptions online, and easy access to your annual Rx records should you need them. I was also able to set up my daughters Rx’s on my account. My husband had to set up an account to give me permission to manage his ‘scripts, but I do appreciate that they do try to keep fraud down.

So setting up the accounts and getting them connected was a bit fidget-filled, but it paid off almost immediately. When I log on to fill a ‘script, it is red if it is eligible to be refilled now, I check the box next to the ones I want, and then click the big red button near the bottom of the page. Depending on your insurance, they may be able to tell you how much it will cost before the next screen. The next screen you can enter when you want to be able to pick it up, just like their automated phone line refills. Once done, you receive a confirmation e-mail, and the stuff has always been ready when we came in to pick it up.

*Note: if you use their customer card for discounts and savings, you can manage it from the same log-on.

*Note: this service is not helpful for refilling prescriptions of controlled substances (painkillers, ADD/ADHD medications, etc…) as you have to deal with the physical prescription, but is otherwise very useful.

The following all have, or as best I can tell, appear to have, online refills available. Some of them also allow you to transfer prescriptions, get e-mail reminders, and whatnot. This is just a quick hit of places that offer similar services based of off a quick mental list and then a scan of their available services. Feel free to add more in the comments section, and I will list them here.

CVS
Walgreen’s
WalMart
Target
Kroger
Rite Aid
Kmart
Meijer’s
Tucker Pharmacy (used to be Tucker State Pharmacy) was bought, but is still around, but if it does have a web page, it is not under that name. Upon a Google street view search, they are still there, but are now a Tucker (Walgreen’s). So they have it.
BioScrip
Marwood Low Cost Pharmacy does not appear to have a web page.
Dr. Aziz Pharmacy does not appear to have it.
Marsh does not appear to have it.

Bitch on Gaming

I am working on about 22 pages of ideas for this blog, but while I am at it, I want to recommend this article on Bitch: The Games We Play: Access This. It brings up some of the same thoughts I have had about gaming, and great new ones too!

Enjoy!

Great Link!

Second Shift for the Sick is a blog post I read tonight, and just wanted to jump up and down yelling, "This! This! THIS!" You know, without all the actual jumping or yelling.

The post is a great description of just how tiring it is to be chronically ill. How tough it is just to get up and be on some days.

I am so tired of worrying if I am making other people uncomfortable just because I am sick. Some days I understand that I remind other people of their frailty, their mortality. Other days I just want to tell them to eat it.

I will write more tomorrow. I think I am starting to get a feel for this blog.