That got me thinking about these little food labels that have come up recently on the sides of packages and on the doors of restaurants to warn people of the contents, and I’m not arguing their use for something that’s non-obvious. On the side of the vegetarian sausage, it has a note clearly stating that there’s soy, milk, eggs, and wheat in there. That’s good information that may not be obvious on first glance. This is the kind of thing that folks with those allergies would want to know. I get that.

However, like all good things, some manufacturers go to extremes. Seeing “This product may contain nuts” on the side of a package of peanuts helps nobody who isn’t already keenly aware that there might be some nut-like product inside of a package claiming to contain nuts. I’m pretty sure that if I opened up a can of nuts and received nuts instead of being hit by a spring-coiled snake, I wouldn’t be thanking the person who graciously warned me on the side of the can that there were nuts inside. I’d much rather they warned me there was a spring-coiled snake inside. “This product contains a lame joke that was played out in the late seventies”.

Of course, a perennial favorite is the comments on the facility in which the product is made. “This product manufactured in a facility that processes nuts”. Again, this is useful information for someone who may have a strong allergy to nuts, but may not be aware that the potato chip they are enjoying may have been run down a line that processes peanuts on alternate Tuesdays. I have no problem warning folks of something in the manufacturing process that they may not know already. But, I have to wonder how far they might take it someday:

“This product processed in a factory containing Joe. Joe likes to eat Planters Peanuts while processing our tasty potato chips. He also is a loud drunk and recites bad beat-poetry. Nobody knows why we keep Joe. In fact, if we fired Joe, we wouldn’t need this notice at all. Do you think we should keep Joe? Please call our customer hotline at 1-800-… .”

I wonder too if we get a little peek into the making of our food when we’ll hit the point where we’ll get too much information. Will we be seeing notices about the cleaning practices of the plant? The date the last inspector gave the plant a clean bill of health? Who the idiot was who diverted cow waste into the spinach? And what of those who want to know the faith make-up of the staff preparing their food?

“This product produced in a facility that is 50% Catholic, 30% Protestant, 10% Jewish, 5% Muslim, 4% Hindi, and 1 person who claims she is Wiccan this week.”

Good thing I don’t have a Catholic allergy.

I’d appreciate it if the store would give equal shelf time to the areas of science and technology as they do for the new-age hippie nonsense that seemingly has permeated the store. I understand that it’s fashionable (and possibly more profitable) to cater to the 2012, end-of-the-world folks who believe our planet is doomed to cease to exist because someone in the Bureau of Mayan calendars got lazy and figured some future Mayan might pick up the slack when the calendar ran out, but I’m sure that any reasonable books which counter such beliefs will not be found anywhere in your store. Perhaps the problem isn’t with your stores, and maybe it’s all within the publishers purvey, but it seems that between your store and the website that purportedly picks up the slack from the store, I can’t find anything that I’m looking to purchase. It seems the sections that I care about are shrinking, while the bargain book and woo-woo crackpot areas are growing by leaps and bounds. I’d love to give you more money. Really! Check my Border’s Rewards Card. I love buying books. Please give me the opportunity. Thank you.

Think I got my point across?

Amazon gets it right in that you don’t notice the DRM as much (and when they do, boy do people howl). The Adobe DRM that is in use on most eBook devices is, frankly, a pain in the ass. When publishers realize that most of their customers aren’t going to steal their content, (and those who are going to steal their content likely already have it), we’ll be able to have a serious, and intelligent conversation about eBooks. Until then, I guess we’ll have to suffer several tone-deaf iterations while folks sort out the details.

• Hospitals are amazing places with absolutely caring people manning the floors. When I was in emergency and having my surgery, I could feel genuine empathy from those making sure that I was comfortable, and prepared for what was to come.
• Emergency rooms are some of the most callous places on Earth, not because they don’t care, but because they have to be. Seeing people come in at their worst (in my case literally drawn to a blubbering mess after having wretched minutes before) makes folks have to keep their cool. I’m sure I wasn’t the worst for wear of any of the folks there, especially the hard-of-hearing gentleman next to me.
• I’m a privacy wonk as much as the next guy, but if having a centralized database of my up-to-date medical and insurance information available via a card or some piece of ID would mean I’d never have to fill out another damn essay on my medical history, I’d be the first in line. It really gets old after a while.
• I swear every time I went to the hospital and asked for something, I didn’t do it right, and had to go somewhere else to fill out my particulars so I could get whatever it was that I needed. What a huge pain in the ass.
• I can see why folks get addicted to painkillers. I’m not saying that I had pain that would have made me a junkie had I been less strong, but having some assurance that you could lead some semblance of a normal life if you only take this pill / inject this drug is extremely sexy.
• I can sleep in a hospital, but they definitely like to make sure you don’t get much rest.
• General Anesthesia is a platoon leader, and his goal is to conquer your ass.
• I have never seen more bizarre things come out of my body than during this episode.
• You can fake any kind of wellness if it means you can get out of the hospital sooner.
• Insurance companies do not like paying for prescriptions under any circumstances. It’s not about filling the pill vials that make pharmacists valuable, it’s navigating the 500 different pitfalls that will get an insurance company to make you pay full price.
• Every man gets a queasy look on their face when told about kidney stones,.
• I am fortunate to work for an amazing company, an amazing manager, and amazing co-workers who helped me get through this by picking up my slack, and letting me recuperate as much as I needed.
• I have amazing parents for putting up with the waiting room debacles from today.
• I have an awesome wife who was there for me at every step of the way, even when it was our wedding anniversary plans that were getting preempted by my predicament. I love you, sweetheart.
• I’ve blogged way too much about this whole ordeal.

The long of it was the hour long wait that happened before each phase of the journey, plus an additional fun jaunt through the hospital so I could deliver my precious cargo (f’er #1).

My parents were enlisted to help me get to where I needed to go today because JoDee was teaching during my appointment. The doctor asked me to go and get an X-ray prior to seeing him, so I was under the assumption that the script was faxed and ready to go before my arrival. Ha ha. A quick call to the doctor’s office, and then to the radiologist confirmed that the script was probably still on a pad of paper in the doctor’s office, and not in the hot little hands of those-who-could-irradiate-me. After a few phone calls, though, the hospital and the radiologist had the script, and I was on my merry way.

My parents showed up a little before 11am, and around 11:15am we were able to go to the radiologist’s waiting room. Minutes pass. A half hour passes. The waiting room begins to fill up, and folks are escorted out to their respective diagnostic equipment. More time passes. After around an hour, the front office realizes that they’ve lost my order, and let me know as much. After their realization, I got my X-ray, and was on my merry way.

We caught a quick lunch at The Country Inn, and then raced home so I could present the doctor with my prize (f’er #1). We then raced to the urologists’ office, and (after the requisite paperwork of “no, I don’t do drugs, nor do I have a telephone pole painfully hanging out of my ass” form filling), we sat down and proceeded to once again wait for something to happen. Time passes. Rather than the loose time-frame of “sometime before your visit”, I had an “appointment” for 1:45pm, so I figured that I’d be whisked away to stent-removing paradise, and be out of there at least before 2:30pm. Time passes. A half-hour goes by. Rather than taking my chances again with having my presence go unnoticed, I sauntered up and asked if I was still in the queue. Yes, there’s four doctors here, and my doctor is busy with other patients, please wait. Time passes. Finally, I managed to get in and see the doctor.

I won’t detail the procedure, suffice to say that I opted not to have the local anesthetic like a big boy. After all, 30 seconds of “feeling like you need to pee” is quite alright with me. About 10 seconds in, I wondered if that was wise after all, but before I knew it, the magic trick was over, and the stent was presented. I felt like a proud father.

The doctor didn’t, however, take my stone, and instead issued me a script to take it back to the hospital to have it examined. Yay. So, I was one again sitting across from someone telling them my particulars (which I assured her, hadn’t changed since I last sat across from someone telling them my particulars, assuring them that they hadn’t changed from the few weeks back when I sat across from someone telling them my particulars, assuring them that they hadn’t changed since …)

Fortunately, the metabolic technician, on observing that I had the sample in hand instead of inside some cavity yet to be explored, happily took the sample (marked “One Blasted Kidney Stone” in a 1 qt freezer bag) and sent me on my merry way.

There will still be more tests and such to see why I’m so fertile with kidney stones, but the feeling of being finally done with the ordeal that I had been through; the feeling that I could once again lead my life, and bring in groceries, and finally open up the bottle of wine that JoDee and I bought for our anniversary on May 17th, and the feeling that I didn’t have the possibility of something slipping in ureter-ville, sending me into a low-Earth pain orbit is a complete relief. I was able to lead a life with the stent in me, but it wasn’t “normal”. There was always a reminder that I was sick; that I could at any time have to down my weight in Darvocet, or have to rush to the hospital. The feeling now that I can be “normal” again is a relief.

I actually clicked my heels together in Meijer.

The end of the road to this kidney stone saga? Yeah, I’m ready for it.

The plan is to hopefully get rid of them prior to Thursday. If on Thursday they are still lodged, then I’ll be going in on Friday (6/4) to have them forcibly removed, along with the stent. Otherwise I’ll just be having the stent removed next Monday. (6/7).

More info as it becomes available. If you’d like to see the registry for the new arrivals, please check out the Amazon Wishlist on the sidebar.

So, two kidney stones in two weeks, and a stent-removal in June. I sure know how to party. It’s like a freakin’ carnival over here.

Say for instance that Borders has a 33% off coupon this week. I’m required before I make my way to Borders to print out a coupon and present it upon my purchase. Why? Why not have it so I don’t have to print out the coupon? I already get an e-mail from Borders with the coupon. Why not make it so that I can just show up at Borders and get the 33% regardless of whether I have a physical paper coupon or not?

There may be some psychology that I’m not taking into account (the physical nature of a coupon being a larger driver to visit the store than the reminder in the back of my brain) but I’d like to know the reason why companies (and Borders isn’t the only company to do this) have to have a physical coupon.

Unfortunately, the location that they chose for my IV wasn’t working out, so just before I went in for surgery, they put it in on the other hand (which was like a carnival for me with my needle fixation). After administering the “this will make you a bit sleepy” medicine, I found myself back in the bed where I started. I have very little recollection of what exactly happened (not that I’m particularly complaining). I have to get in contact with the doctor to see what exactly he did up there, since the x-rays seem to show that either the stone passed into the bladder, or something else was present. In any case, I need to get the stent removed in a few weeks time, so I’ll be back in the hospital to have that removed.

Also, General Anesthesia is a bitch. I had a little spell after about three bites of mashed potatoes that had me in the bathroom taking care of business. Mind you, I felt tonnes better afterward, but damn, that stuff packs quite a whallop.

More later. I promise I’ll blog about something else outside of kidney stones soon. :)

Friday was pretty quiet, and after JoDee and I got home from a quiet night together, all hell broke loose. I literally had enough pain in my side to make me lose my dinner, so we rushed to the emergency room. After some pain management, X-Rays, and a CAT scan, they found that the stone was 6mm in size. In the grand scale of things, anything under 4mm is generally passable, but 4-6mm starts getting into a gray area, and 6mm and above requires surgery. The staff determined that I needed to talk to a urologist, and they admitted me to a hospital room. I spent most of the night between trying to sleep and having my vital signs tracked. That morning, JoDee showed up with some books, the Eee, and Munchkin. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to really so much with that stuff, because I was a) tired, and b) still getting visits for my vital signs. A urologist showed up a little before 11am, and the decision was made to implant a stent to make sure the stone wouldn’t be impeding regular flow. My parents showed up about the same time that I was getting prepped for surgery. At 11:30am, I was in surgery, awaiting the stent to be put into place.

Surgery went well, and before long I was awake, and ready to get the heck out of the hospital. After proving that I could still function (ie: eat solid foods, and “void”), they let me go. I have an appointment on Thursday to have the urologist play asteroids and see if he can break up the stone (which I have nicknamed “peanut”) and with luck, I’ll be done with this whole episode before long.

On top of this, this is JoDee and my anniversary weekend. Our plans to be out-of-town over the weekend have unfortunately been delayed since I’m dealing with this stone. On the one hand it’s a blessing that this happened at a time when we both can be home, but it also kinda sucks that our anniversary plans didn’t go off as planned. On the other-hand, it just goes to show me that I have an awesome wife, whom I love very much. She’s definitely been through some of my low points. :)

More later when I know more.

UPDATE: It looks like I’m on for Thursday for the next round of treatment.

Sorry, but making it so I have to opt-out of every single site that could possibly collect information from me is asinine.

Still want to stay in touch with people, just not like that.

[EDITED: Changed the link so it'll actually link to the article]

I’ve recently re-subscribed to the paper edition of the Detroit Free Press. I’m not too much of a fan of the newspaper (quite frankly, if it wasn’t for the coupons on Sunday, I wouldn’t see much point in getting the paper at all), but their latest little gimmick just screams desperation.  Since the paper has cut their daily physical paper deliveries to Thursday, Friday, and Sunday, they’ve been working hard to make sure that folks know that the paper is still “published” every single day via their “e-Editions” service. e-Editions is a web-based service that allows you to view the paper on-line as it would have been printed had it been printed to paper. It’s an interesting concept, but from what I’m gathering, the uptake on it hasn’t been very good.

Well, today, they all but confirmed that the uptake on the e-Editions has been less than stellar. We got a little kit in the mail from the Detroit Media Partnership containing a letter and a manual for the e-Editions service. Here’s a photo of the kit we received:

The manual shows how easy the service is to use. Here’s the pages for searching the paper:

The assumption I’m getting from this kit is that the reason their service isn’t as popular as it could be is because people don’t understand how to use it, so this friendly little booklet will guide folks to better use their service. That may be the case, but I have a different theory on why the service needs to have a special mailing in order to explain it to people.

Folks have been conditioned that they need to do as little as possible to get a paper. Home delivery couldn’t be simpler: open door, get paper. Going to the news stand is a little more complicated: go to store, find paper, purchase paper. These steps can be combined with anything else, and the paper may then be taken freely wherever the person wants to go (coffee table, beach, train, etc.). This, however, requires me to not only be in front of my computer (which isn’t a problem for me) but also requires me to log in to a special account. Let’s show how this works:

Ah, the friendly login screen. Nice, eh? So, what login should I use? I used to have a Detroit News account, but I forgot what the password was. I tried out their e-Editions stuff in the past, but I didn’t save the password. Hmm. Maybe I need to log in with a new account. Yeah, I’ll do that.

Except the number for the e-Editions was on a comment card that I sent back to tell them about my service.

Yep, in their infinite wisdom, the paper sent out the e-Editions number on a comment card, with the number being plainly on the card part that you mailed, not the card part that you might ostensibly keep because that part didn’t have an address on it.

Fortunately, I made a photo copy of it, so I have the number. Let’s try to make a new account:

OK, if I’d mailed back that handy little account number, I could still (theoretically) get in to the system by typing in my information (btw: defaulting phone number to 0? That’s a real confidence booster).

After entering my account number, it helpfully told me my name and address, with a plea that if it wasn’t me to call customer service. Yeah, that isn’t an invitation to just randomly try account numbers to see which ones strike pay dirt.

So, once I’ve signed in, I can now read today’s edition from the comfort of my computer’s chair. Here’s  what greets me after clicking on today’s edition:

Wow, bring out the fugly stick and wave it around a few, won’t you? This is why I’ve stopped reading a few magazines that have gone all-digital. These silly “paper-in-browser” interfaces are lessons in usability nightmares. What do I get when I click on the paper itself? What about the articles on the right-hand side? How do I get to page 9A? Even better, clicking on the article on the right shows the article as it would have been printed, links to page 4A and all.

So, I decided to click on the top of the page, and got the above screen. Scrolling down, I get the text in the right side-bar, but that’s it; no links to the article itself. However, clicking on the article sidebar got me the text (including a link to page 4A. Grr).

Oh, and if you want to go to the front page? Think you’d get there from clicking on the “Detroit Free Press” logo? You’d be wrong, as that sends you to freep.com, which has a better on-line experience, save for their annoying-as-hell ads that take up half of the page.

There is a bright light in all of this mess, and it surprised me when I found it. Up at the top is a link to “PDFs”. Clicking on it gave me the option to download the whole paper via PDF. I was a bit surprised because it leads me to my next suggestion for the Detroit Media Partnership.

This interface is a usability disaster. I managed to get myself stuck in several places while composing this article. I imagine someone who is less computer savvy would have a hell of a time with this interface. Rather than forcing folks to log in to see the paper, why not offer an electronic delivery service. Instead of trying to push an on-line experience, why not let folks opt in to receive the paper via PDF over e-mail? OK, sending 30MB PDFs is likely going to cause some heartache with many e-mail clients, but sending a link to a PDF every morning would work, and would probably get more folks to use the service (or at least try it out).

Forcing readers / users to adapt to an online experience that is foreign and potentially hostile is no way to run a business. If this was the only way to get access to the Detroit Free Press, I’d take a pass, no questions asked. While the “free” Free Press site drives me insane sometimes, it still is a far more pleasurable reading experience than this on-line version. Having an option to download PDF versions of the paper is far more preferable to me, and possibly for other folks as well.

A bit of history may be in order for those who are tuning in late. Back around the turn of the century (20th-21st, not 19th – 20th) there was a company that made the best effort at ensuring Linux would have commercial games to play. This company was Loki Software, Inc, and their tale won’t be repeated here (Check the Wikipedia article for more information. Suffice to say, Loki Software is no longer with us. The details of what happened aren’t clear, whether the problem was with the Linux Game Market itself, or with internal mis-management. Whatever the reason, one still can’t say the words “Linux Gaming” without pointing to Loki Software. The two are inextricably intertwined, and few companies have been as ambitious as Loki with bringing commercial games to Linux.

However, not all is bleak in the Linux Games world. There are still some players porting commercial games over to Linux. One of the more successful companies has been Linux Game Publishing, which has a very active and diverse stable of games available for Linux. One of their resellers, Tux Games resells Linux Game Publishing titles for Linux. I’m not sure what their profits are, or even what their sales are, but they’ve both been active in the Linux games business for a while.

So, all is good, right?

Well, unfortunately, there’s still a problem with Linux gaming. Take a look ath the titles available on Linux Game Publishing’s site. Now take a look at the titles on Tuxgames. I’ll challenge you to recognize any of the titles that are available on that site. What’s worse is some of the more recognizable titles on Tuxgames (Alpha Centauri, Tribes II, Civilation: Call to Power, Sin City 3000) were Loki Software releases. So, a company that went defunct in 2002 still has several of the top ten sales on Tuxgames. Even better, Civilization: Call to Power is still available for sale for $27.00. Now, that’s pretty much in-line with the current selling price, because the game is now a collector’s item (especially the Linux version). Let’s take another example: Sacred Gold. A quick search of Google Products for Sacred Gold turns up prices around the $10-15 mark. On Tuxgames, it’s $50.

That’s right, $50.

Quick math time: the Windows version is $35 less than the Linux version.

And here lies the biggest problem of Linux Gamers everywhere. Because there’s so few games available, and because the prices are not subject to the usual reverse auction that retailers do in order to get rid of old stock (ie: game starts at $50, reduced to $39.99, then to $29.99, then $10, with perhaps a discounted re-release at some point) prices are not subject to the usual market fluctiations that a Windows game might have. I’d be willing to bet that one year from now, Sacred Gold will still be $50, with nary a discount in sight.

I’m not faulting Linux Game Publishing or Tuxgames on their pricing scheme (though I will fault Tuxgames on their choice of DRM, but that’s another rant). They’re well within their rights to charge whatever they want to charge. As long as it keeps the lights on in their respective offices, I’m perfectly OK with what they charge. However, when it’s more economically feasable to purchase a copy of a Windows version of a program and use that under emulation or other means, it means the demand for Linux games shrinks. Worse, it could mean that we have two more companies that will be brought up as examples of why Linux Games aren’t profitable.

So, with the economic choice out of the way, what’s left is a moral choice. Because I am a fan of Linux Gaming, and because I’d like to see more games for Linux, the choice becomes one of guilt. If Linux game Publishing and / or Tux Games go out of business, is it my fault for either not purchasing their games, or for not purchasing enough games? If another publisher publishes a game for Linux, am I obligated to purchase that as well, lest the market forces cause them to stop producing games?

I’d love to have a parity with Windows users where I can concentrate more on the game that I want to play rather than on the long-term longevity of those who are supplying the game, but as long as the Linux Game Market works this way, we’ll never have a healthy and sustainable game market for Linux.