R.I.P. Creatures

A couple of weeks ago I noticed I wasn't getting any sound out of my right computer speaker.  I had been using these computer speakers for over 10 years and loved them.  They sounded good and had a cool and unique design.

Apparently JBL no longer makes the creature speakers but I was able to find a seller on Amazon selling a brand new pair for $99.  For some reason, though, I didn't buy them right away and I am glad I didn't because I kind of made out like a bandit in this situation.  I met BoilerPip for dinner a few days later.  I had sent him a message about the speaker dying and he happened to have a set of silver creatures that he hadn't used in years and gave them to me.  Prior to this meeting, however, I had initiated a conversation with my office manager regarding a set up Klipsch ProMedia computer speakers.  Her husband is a sound engineer at Klipsch and I asked if maybe he could get me a discount on the speakers.  Turns out, he had an open box version of the speakers that he couldn't sell and so he just gave them to me.  They retail between $150-$200, and while they aren't as cool looking as the creatures, they sound fantastic.

I'm now taking my "new" creatures to work to use on my computer there.  Additionally, and this is totally unrelated to speakers, I got a new pair of Saucony shoes for free as well from my neighbor.  He works at a running shoe store and apparently this pair had a "defect."  They seem fine to me.

The older I get, the more I enjoy these three day weekends like Labor day.  It's an extended weekend and a day off work without the stress of holidays like Christmas.  Plus the extra day off on Monday should make the next work week short as well.  While not the official end of summer, Labor day certainly means autumn is around the corner, which is one of my favorite times of the year.  Football and fleece jackets - I love it.

Losing My TV

I told myself that I wouldn't allow this to happen.  I told myself that I wouldn't allow my toddlers to take my TV hostage.  And yet as they now approach 3 years old and can ask for what they want, the seemingly inevitable has happened.  I remember being at Sarah's sister's house when her kids were younger, wondering why all of the adults were allowing the kids to watch kids shows all morning long.  I can now tell you why.  Because it is much, much easier to just give in and allow them to watch their shows than listen to them fuss about it all day long.  Don't get me wrong, if there is something on TV that I really want to watch, I'll watch it.  But generally speaking, especially early in the mornings, I will let them watch their shows first.  Subsequently I've seen Frozen, Shrek, Sesame Street, etc, seemingly hundreds of times.

My kids aren't the only ones confiscating my TV this summer.  Dish network has been in battle with the Tribune Company over channels for months now.  In central Indiana this affects both the Fox and CBS affiliate.  Additionally, Dish had been in negotiations with the NFL Network for months, but that dispute has seemingly ended, unsurprisingly just before the NFL preseason began.  As a casual football fan, I honestly couldn't care less about the NFL network.  It's a channel I rarely if ever watch.  Generally speaking, I don't care much about Fox or CBS either.  However, NFL season is starting soon and I'm going to be a bit frustrated if the channels don't return in time.

I don't remember channels being removed from cable due to contract disputes being an issue growing up.  It is certainly becoming an issue with increasing frequency.  It's to the point now where I'm not surprised when it happens.  And this CBS/Fox - Dish dispute is lasting longer than usual.  Seems like they usually go on for a month or so.  This one has been going on for several months.  Obviously times are changing fast in the TV business right now as more and more people are using streaming and other means to get their entertainment.  I just hope this dispute ends before the real NFL season kicks off in a couple of weeks.

Bounce Without Launch

Without question, the video game I've logged the most hours with, by far, is Sim City 4.  I've always been a fan of the series, from the original that I had on floppy disk all the way through 4.  The fourth edition of the game came out well over 10 years ago and I had consistently played it up until the spring of this year.  Its expansive maps and large on-line user community which provided custom content kept the game fresh over the years.  Plus the sequel(s?) received less than stellar reviews, making the question to upgrade to the newest edition an easy one to answer.

When my PC had a hardware failure and essentially died in October of 2014, I was forced to make a decision on which computer to buy to replace it.  At the time, it was difficult to find anything Windows-based within reason that wasn't Windows 8, which I wasn't interested in.  Because of this I decided to go with Mac, and generally I think that has been a good decision.  However, this essentially meant giving up on Sim City 4.  Sure, they had an original Mac port but I read it was terrible.  So suffice it to say that I was surprised to see Sim City 4 in the app store being released by a company called Aspyr.  This version was only $20 and got good reviews on the app store, so I decided to try it out.  I was not disappointed at first.

First off, the game looked great.  The graphics, while the same, had definitely underwent an overhaul.   Everything looked sharper and crisper.  The cities looked great, especially at night.  Secondly, the game ran great as well.  It was fast and never crashed, something I cannot say about its Windows counterparts that I ran on various different Windows machines.

I was thrilled to be able to continue my city building.  For 16 months I worked on a region that was loosely based on San Francisco's Bay Area.  I had pushed the population up to 2.9 million.  I even started using mods again, most of which were designed for the Windows version of the game, but some of which worked on Aspyr's Mac version.  Then last winter I got busy and didn't play the game for a few months.  When I went back to play the game again, something odd happened - the program wouldn't launch.  When I click on the icon, it bounces briefly on the dock and a window pops up that says "Verifying Sim City 4 Deluxe Edition," then disappears and nothing happens.  Nothing.

When I Google this problem I come up with absolutely no information which is strange.  Most of what comes up are issues people were having back in 2012 with the original Maxis Mac port.  Literally nothing comes up about this problem regarding the newer Aspyr version.  The app store reviews contain a lot of complaints regarding the issue but no real solution to the problem.  Seems like there was an update that occurred in the background which had an issue with any mods that were installed.  But even getting rid of the mods doesn't seem to fix the problem.  This is incredibly frustrating and makes me think, at this point with the game being over 10 years old, I may never be able to play it again.  And while the online modding community is part of what made the game great, I can't help but to think this problem, so severe that the game won't even start, would never happen on a console.

The Mini NES

Nintendo is releasing this mini version of the NES this fall.  Not only does the new release look like a scaled version of their classic 1980s console, it comes pre-loaded with 30 classic NES games!  I am super excited about this.  For a variety of reasons I rarely play games anymore.  Probably the biggest reason is that today's games are too complex to just sit down and play and enjoy.  Their learning curve is too steep and requires too much effort to really get into the game.  I think this is one of the things that make classic games so appealing to me.  For the most part, they can be picked up and played with minimal effort.  Of course, the biggest appeal is the nostalgia.  The price for this device is $60, which I think is right.  I'm almost for sure going to pick one up.  It comes with HDMI output, so I am hoping the games look at least decent on a modern TV.  Anyone who has tried playing any console prior to the PS2 knows that older consoles generally look pretty bad on modern TVs.  At any rate, what a cool idea.

Dog Days Of Summer

We've reached that time of summer when baseball's all-star game is being played.  The all-star break is an absolute black hole in the sports landscape, where the only major league playing takes a break.  We're somewhat lucky this year as the olympic trials have been going on, however.  I still enjoy the olympics, not so much for the major sports, but for the more fringe sports that I don't typically pay attention to, such as track & field and women's gymnastics.  Additionally, the weather has turned uncomfortably hot and my grass is now partially brown.  Hence, the two month writer's block.  I've either been too busy to write, or not busy enough to have anything to write about.  I'm going to try to get back on the wagon. Cheers!

Babysitting Adults

Seeing as how there is a massive prescription narcotics abuse problem in this country, in late 2013 the state of Indiana released guidelines for prescribing chronic narcotics.  Basically, anyone taking a certain amount of narcotic for greater than 3 months qualified for chronic pain management appointments.  These appointments included extra paperwork to determine levels of anxiety and depression, abuse potential, doctor shopping habits, and urine drug screens.  For various reasons I have been lax with these rules, until now.

By an overwhelming amount, the urine drug screen is by far the most interesting part of this process.  The paperwork is mostly a waste of time as people lie about their abuse potential and it's mostly busywork.  The urine drug screen is where the action is located.  The majority, I would estimate 80%, of the urine drug screens I perform have discrepancies.  Some people are taking others pain medicines.  Some aren't taking the medicines they're prescribed.  Others are taking street drugs, by far the most popular is marijuana.  I'm convinced half the population is smoking pot.  I'm to the point now where I expect people's drug screens to have inconsistencies.  And when they do, I stop prescribing them narcotics.  I absolutely should've been doing this from the beginning.

And yet I hate this aspect of my job.  I don't think I've ever been loose with prescribing these medicines.  But when people had pain complaints, and a reasonable response to the medicines, I would prescribe them.  This process has opened my eyes so much have essentially done an about face.  I've basically reached the point where I don't want to prescribe narcotics for any indication, especially as a primary care doctor.  This is because (A) I have long term follow-up with these people and can't get them off the medicines (until they fail their drug screen) and (B) I don't want to spend my whole day doing these lengthy, cumbersome appointments for pain.  I get asked several times per week to prescribe these medicines, usually for some benign condition or pain syndrome with an unknown diagnosis, and I just shake my head and politely offer them an anti-inflammatory.  They typically then ride off into the sunset, never to be heard from again.

Oh It's On, Part II

Something strange is going on.  Shortly after encountering the mouse invasion (which I think has been taken care of), we started noticing ants in our house.  First a few per day, then a few every time we went into the kitchen, then 5-10 every time we went to the kitchen.  They were always congregated around the kitchen sink.  We never saw them anywhere else.

To some extent, having ants is worse than mice.  We had the small, black type, which blended in with our countertops and were somewhat difficult to spot.  Because of this, every time I picked up anything from the counter, especially if I was planning on eating it, I felt compelled to inspect it.  It's the kind of feeling I'd expect to have if I were living in filth.

I've never had an ant problem inside the house before, so once again I was new to eliminating this type of pest.  After consulting the internet (What would a home owner do without the internet, by the way?) and a couple of my friends, I decided to get ant baits instead of killers.  When I bought them I had no idea how they worked (turns out it's a bit morbid, but really an ingenious way to get the job done).  A few days after setting the traps, we noticed a marked increase in the number of ants we were seeing.  I was becoming a bit nervous to be honest.  But a few days later the number decreased and at this point we basically aren't seeing any ants.  Hopefully this is the last pest we have to deal with for awhile.