Verizon Greed

I use a Verizon modem to connect to the 'net. This is because I live in a semi-rural area near a cell tower.

For the past few months, I've gone way over my plan. Right now, I am looking at a $140 bill for August. I can pay this but it irks me that it costs so much in the first place.

Didn't someone in Congress say that the internet should be a basic right? My 5 GB allowance is $50 and is not enough if I want to watch a movie.

My laptop is brand new. It needed like 200 updates from, Windows Update and that added to it. I also watched some movies, downloaded a lot of music I bought. 5 GB is just not enough.

So I will change to the $80 10 GB plan, when this overplagued bill ends in the first week of September.

Why does it cost so much? This is just greed. Every corporation is greedy to some point. I saw it in wm, greed dictated store policy. I despise greed. I only want to do my thing and have a shell to retreat into as my anxiety uncoils and strikes like a cobra.

I don't know. Many things I liked about the internet have gone away. I miss my WebTV. That's going away as well.

Change? No, it's more like entropy, a breakdown. I hate change.

The Expense of Sight

You may notice that I wear eyeglasses. I have since I was 12, being myopic. Every couple of years, I've needed new glasses as my vision has gotten worse. I generally pick my glasses based on my last pair, since I don't want to change my appearance that much. I don't like big obtrusive, dark rimmed glasses. I wanted rimless but my prescription makes the lenses too warped for that. Not that my lenses are thick, they would be in the old days but with polycarbonate plastic, they are slim.

Those lenses. The most expensive part of my glasses.

An example from when I went to the eye doctor today.

$60 for the lenses.
$120 for the High-Index plastic they are made of.
$149 for Crizal Alize UV, which is an antiglare coating.

$129 for the frame.

I know it could be cheaper but cheap is not a good idea in something so vital.

$373.60 was the total cost but that was with a 20% discount. I mean, that would have been over $500 and that is frighteningly expensive for glasses.

It is always an expensive undertaking, getting new glasses. I don't do this often like I should. My last eye exam before yesterday was in 2010.

The optometrist said my vision has improved slightly. I can't see how. I am blind without my glasses, always will be. She put some drops in my eyes to dilate them and man, I could barely see, still can't clearly. I hope whatever study she did to them mattered. My eyes are blue but at the worst of it, you couldn't see my irises at all, just solid black.

She also told me to get a new pillow because allergens build up in old ones. My pillow was getting old anyway, I got it when I worked at wm, and that ended over three years ago. I did get a new pillow. I also got a bigger pc screen, as maybe I can see that better.

It seems like an expense foisted on people with awful vision like me. Be glad that you don't wear glasses.

Oh? Contacts.... forget it. I don't like poking myself in the eye and I look funny without my glasses. It's part of my self-image.

The optometrist also said that I have astigmatism and slight glaucoma. That's just great.

When I drove to the eye clinic today, it was through an intense rainstorm and that really ruffled my anxiety feathers. They took my blood pressure and it was up, sorta way up, as I get that when I panic.

Should have took my medicine but that has issues I do not want to deal with.

Be glad that you don't have glasses if you don't need them. It is an expense, a vital one.

Hurting

I broke the keyboard of my main pc on accident. I have to use my new laptop to do this.

I have been using Windows 8 for a few days now. I don't like this start screen bs. Takes a long time to find things in what should have been the start menu like in Vista.

I like my laptop, it's slick looking, black, with a cool HP design grayed into it. Its webcam is super sharp and the computer is fast.

I don't know. I suppose I will get used to it.

I have been having serious male pain when I pee. I don't know what this is. It feels like running a piece of steel rebar up there when I pee. Hurts a lot. I can go to the doctor but I don't want my peeny touched. It hurts. This is either related to my prostatitis or something worse, I just don't know.

I ordered new underwear, compression helps as it doesn't hurt me. I wear briefs only. Always have.
I think it is because I drank some soda (Pepsi) and that is what is hurting me. The urologists said it would. I shouldn't have bought some. Besides, unburned calories like from soda add to one's belly. You can see that in me.

New Computer

I have a new laptop. Cost $400 but that's okay. I don't need a powerful master system. My Pentium 4 pc with Vista was getting old. I got this pc in case I have problems with it. I don't like Windows 8 but I am learning how to use it. My laptop is an HP one as is my desktop one.

Once I figure out how to use the webcam on here, I'll post a picture of me from it.

TS Erin in Google Earth

This is Tropical Storm Erin, which I first learned of from Erin Burnett Out Front on CNN last evening.

I looked it up in Google Earth and this is what I saw. We need to keep an eye on this one, it could be a monster if and when it nears the US coast.

If it is hard to see, the storm is near the Cape Verde Islands.

I will post a satellite picture of TS Erin once it becomes a symmetrical hurricane.


I always did like the name Erin. I knew a girl in school named Erin. I wonder what happened to her.

Dog Star Days

You can go out in the morning, assuming you can see the stars from where you are and you are near the 30 degrees north latitude, and see something that inspired the Ancient Egyptians.

Well, yes, near this something is Orion, splayed across the southern sky like a dominate shadow.

I am talking about Sirius, the Dog Star. It is the brightest star in our sky other than El Sol. Indeed, all of Canis Major is visible as it rises above the light pollution that makes the eastern horizon glow at night.

These are Winter stars, Auriga, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, etc... all visible at this time. The season is changing though it hasn't appeared to do so on the ground where it is roasty hot.

This is best scene at about 5 am. Are you awake at 5 am? I am, I am an overnight person. Nothing like the familiarness of these beloved stars.

I am okay, though I have increased male pain. I cannot see the doctor until September, when I can afford it.

Nudity

Are you shy about your body?

Do you hide your parts if you are naked and someone walks in on you?

I'm not, with the exception of an erection. See, when I had all those urinary tests, my male part was stuck with needles, had a sensor taped to it, I had an ultrasound on my scrotum. Also, there was that inter-urinary camera.

I came to feel like, hey, I have a peena, big deal. All males have one.

I don't have a bad one. It was liked by by ex-girlfriends, excluding Jen. I am more self-conscious of my belly. I don't exercise as I should. My muscle definition isn't what it once was. That is not saying that I'm pudgy, I'm not.

I am also kinda self-conscious because I have pale skin, I mean, sun-starved white skin. And body hair, you know, I am male after all.

I can talk about my body because I am not shy like that. Only a prudish person would not talk of it.

I wrote this post to tease you. I find it insulting that people look at this blog and don't leave a comment or at least say 'hi'.

Self-Hate

If you read this blog, you know I have Social Anxiety Disorder and disabling Agoraphobia. I am supposed to take a med for this but it has side effects I don't want to deal with right now.

I have stress-induced prostatitis. The tests that determined this were chronicled here. These tests destroyed my nudity inhibition.

I hate my genital-urinary system. It constantly hurts to some degree. There are times I can't pee. When I do, it is like a trail of fire up my urinary path. I cannot go to the urologist. They won't see me without health insurance, which will come in October. Two freaking months away.

I will come out and admit this, I may have before, I don't remember. I hate being male. I hate the constant need and feeling. I hate feeling inadequate. I hate attention and am cursed with over-sensitivity.

I cannot change. If I was 20 years younger, I would. I am not effeminate, though, so that would be hard. If it was easily possible, like in Iain M Banks' Culture novels, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Is this over-sensitivity, apparent since I was a kid, a female trait? Is my anxiety disorder a female trait? Most who have it are female. Do I have a female soul?

No, I am male and it will stay that way. I don't hate myself, I hate what I am. It's hardly uncommon.

By the way, I am way over on my internet allotment for the month. I don't want a huge bill so I will be offline until the next cycle begins, this coming wednesday.

Who reads this? Drop a message if you would. Are you interested in my life?

Why?

Warm

It is August. Yes, it's supposed to be hot. In this part of Tx, it is extremely hot in the late summer. I remember summers persisting up to November. Was like 95 on Halloween back in 1997. I was working out in it, as the back room of the store I worked in then was not air conditioned.

Air conditioning. I don't like it, actually. I feel cold when exposed to it. I feel cold and feeling cold is intolerable.

How do I feel when cold? Numb, shivery. Parts of me fully retract. I am 37 years old, when cold, I shrivel up to my prepubescent size. That would be embarrassing if anyone saw it.

But cold is an unpleasant memory. It is 82 at 3 am as I write this. If you went outside, you'd feel warmth and humidity. That is summer here.

Blazing in the sun. I don't go outside because of my agoraphobia but even if I did not have it, I burn in the sun, being a pasty white guy. I once read that people's freckles faded as they became adults. Mine have not, in fact, I have new ones.

I look cute for my age because I stayed out of the sun.

I wonder how my friends will look as we age because they were in the sun a lot.

I don't mind warm/hot weather. Every summer of my life has been hot. August is my favorite time of the year, actually.

It will be cold again and that is NEVER welcome. My feet go numb in the cold and don't warm up until the cold is over. I take baths hot enough to turn my pasty skin red. I like that, looks cool.

How do you feel about hot weather? I know many who bitch about it. Hey, you can deal with hot weather but never can wear enough to keep warm in the winter.