Tag: lol

Swollen Parotid Gland

On By Michel McDonaldIn Doctor, Health, Pain15 Comments

swollen parotid gland

There is this strange thing that happens to me at the very least 1 time and at the most 4 times per year.  My Parotid glands swell up because there is a blockage and it hurts like a mother effer.  I wouldn’t normally use such profanity, but it really hurts lol.

What is the Parotid gland?  Nobody has ever heard that term, but apparently it’s a saliva gland.  This is where your saliva comes from, well, one of the many glands anyway.  I am not a medical professional or even a student so don’t listen to what I’m about to say if you expect to get an education from this, this is only my assumption based on my experience with this.

So you have these glands that produce your saliva.  They release saliva through veins that run from the gland to the inside of your mouth and it oozes out into your mouth.  If there is a block, your gland fills up with saliva and you can literally push on it and you can feel, and even see saliva squirting out of the inside of your cheek either into your mouth, or on the bathroom mirror depending on the direction of the vein and the position you are facing the mirror.  No joke lol.

When I feel it filling up, I push on it and it releases the saliva which gives me some relief, but sometimes the block is so bad that even pushing on it won’t release the saliva.  This happens to me all the time.  Although, pushing on it really hurts until the saliva squirts out, but then it still hurts, but it does give me some relief for a while until it fills back up.  I try not to think of anything that will make me salivate, but then everything makes me salivate.  I can’t win.  It’s like trying to think about baseball when you have an erection, it doesn’t always work.

About 2 weeks ago I could feel swelling and pain from my Parotid gland and we went to our regular appointment and the doctor gave me some antibiotics which was supposed to help.  The doctor told me that if it doesn’t help then I may need surgery.  When we went back a week later it seemed like it had gotten better because it wasn’t as swollen.  The doctor asked me if I wanted surgery and I said it wasn’t necessary.  Oh boy was I wrong.

Saturday evening the Parotid gland had swollen up again so I pushed on it and the saliva went through the veins, but then got stuck so there was a little bubble with saliva sitting in that vein and it couldn’t exit.  It’s still there.  That one little tiny mistake has given me massive amounts of pain since Saturday night.  I’m not the kind of person who cries when he’s in pain because I am literally always in pain so I’m used to it.  When I broke my arm earlier this year I didn’t cry once.  This swollen Parotid gland and saliva bubble pain is so bad that I want to cry.  I haven’t, but I want to.  Or maybe I’ve just bottled my pain emotion so much that I just want to let it out lol.

So I called the doctor’s office yesterday and they scheduled me to come in today at 11:30 a.m.  The doctor gave me a prescription for Norco as well as 2 antibiotics which he said I don’t take right away, he said to wait for it to get worse.  WORSE?  Holy crap!  I went to Truxton Radiology and had an ultrasound then went back to the doctor’s office to have blood drawn for a test specifically for this problem.  He said I will get a letter in the mail with the information for the surgeon referral which will most likely have the appointment in the letter with an address.

I am ready for this thing to go away.  You have no idea how ready I am lol.  I am just sick and tired of being in pain all the time.  If it’s not one thing, it’s another.  If it’s not my curving back which turns out to be scoliosis, then it’s my freakin’ Parotid gland.  I guess that means I’m getting old lol.

Google Keyboard

On By Michel McDonaldIn Android, GoogleLeave a comment

google keyboard

I hate to type with my tiny android phone. The keyboard is literally too small for my fat fingers. Naturally it can take me a long time to type out a simple email which I hate because if it takes too long to type something, you forget what you wanted to say in the first place. That’s why I much prefer to type with my computer, but what if I’m not at home and I need to send a text or write an email to someone? In screwed, right?

So I got an email the other day from Google telling me about Google Keyboard for android. I had seen the swiping keyboard before, but it didn’t come with my phone so I forgot about it. I immediately downloaded the Google keyboard and started using it and I actually love it.

Okay, this is what I love about it… If you are typing and your finger doesn’t go on the right letters, for some reason, it already knows what you wanted to type, so the word comes up anyway. If it’s not the right word, there are choices you can choose from. If you didn’t see that you made a mistake, you just tap the wrong word and you can choose the correct word from the list. It’s literally that easy.

I am typing this out with my android phone right now.

Last night I typed out another post called Patriotic keychains and flag lanyard and it literally only took me like 10 minutes to type it out with Google keyboard.

When I need to type something with my phone, I usually use voice recognition, but then people hear me which makes saying what I have to say more difficult because I don’t want everyone knowing my business. This is actually faster than voice, but you still have that option if you need it. I don’t think I will need that anymore.

Just to clarify, they are not paying me to write this post. I just love Google keyboard that much lol.

DinoMount in EQ2

On By Michel McDonaldIn EverQuest, GamesLeave a comment

I did a few quests in EverQuest 2 today and this was the reward of one of them.  I was surprised that it wasn’t a very difficult quest too because this looks way too cool to be an easy quest.

I’ve been riding a horse that only adds 130% to my running speed.  This adds 60% running speed so I’m a lot slower, but it adds 200% to my flying speed when I assume I am using a griffin to travel.  I guess it is supposed to make that faster.  I’m really not that worried about travel speed since I play a wizard who can cast a spell that brings up a window that you can click to choose where you want to go.

Anyway, I like my dinosaur mount lol.

Sliders Season 4&5 on Netflix

On By Michel McDonaldIn TVLeave a comment

I watched the first 3 seasons of Sliders on Hulu because I missed it when it originally aired.  Unfortunately they didn’t have seasons 4 and 5.  I found it on Netflix, but I hate watching tv shows on my computer.  I had my computer plugged into the TV when I watched Caprica, but that was a pain because it was always going out of sync.  I got a new Sony Blu-Ray player for my birthday so I took that as the perfect opportunity to finally watch Sliders because the Blu-Ray player has internet channels like Netflix and Hulu Plus among others.

I was sad when the professor died in the 3rd season and I wasn’t sure if I would like the new girl whose planet blew up and she was forced to go with the sliders, but I found that I fell in love with her in season 4.  I was really sad that Wade wasn’t in season 4, but I was thrilled that Charlie O’Connell, Jerry O’Connell’s real life brother joined the cast as his brother Colin Mallory.  I loved the 4th season of Sliders.  I have to admit that I spent a LOT of time looking at Charlie, he is hot LOL.

I have already seen the first few episodes of the 5th and final season of Sliders and I think it’s ok, but I’m kinda miffed that Jerry and Charlie O’Connell aren’t in it anymore.  I thought that it was lame that they replaced Quinn with his alternate universe version who doesn’t look a thing like him, like he’s a Quinn’s fraternal twin LOL.

Tembi Locke (from Eureka) is in season 5 as a scientist named Dr. Diana Davis.  I guess since our new Quinn isn’t a genius, they needed to add another genius to the cast to do the things this new Quinn cannot do.  And they aren’t calling him Q-ball or even Quinn, they are calling him Mallory.

I almost didn’t watch season 5 because the only person that is left in the show is Rembrandt, but on the other hand, I love that Tembi Locke is in it so I think I will keep watching it until the end.

What is the plot of this new cast anyway?  I mean, the plot was originally to find their way back to their own universe, but now Rembrandt is the only one who wants to find his own, but they were already there and it has been taken over by an alien species known as the Kromags.  His world is now ruined so he has no reason to go back, except for wanting to be with his family of course.  Maggie has no home so wherever she goes is home.  Diana and Mallory, well I don’t know if they even want to go back to their home.  So what is the purpose now besides trying to stop the Kromags?

Anyway, I guess I will find out when I finish the 5th season.  I think it’s still a good show despite the fact that the original cast is all gone and it was replaced with 3 new people.  I’m glad at least one of them is still original lol.

By the way, can I just say how Maggie looks almost exactly like the woman who plays the evil queen in ABC’s Once Upon A Time?  I already checked, they aren’t the same person, but they could be twins.  Hmmmm, twins from a different universe perhaps?

EverQuest Bonus Exp.

On By Michel McDonaldIn EverQuest1 Comment

If you have been playing EverQuest lately, you know that they have doubled experience for their 13th Anniversary.  Well, you know what that means right?  It’s a Power Levelers dream!

When I started playing again after 5 years of being MIA, I realized that I had to relearn the game from the ground up because I had totally forgotten everything.  You know how they say it’s like riding a bicycle?  Well, it’s sort of true, but you have to take a refresher course to get you back on track.  What I did was I started playing my Necromancer who was level 12 when I began in late February.  I played for a few hours then I couldn’t play it for a week.  Then when I finally did get to start playing it again I got hooked on the game again and now in less than one month my level 12 necromancer is level 47.

When I first started playing EverQuest in 2002, it took me 6 months to get Xanapus to level 16 and I gave up on him and created other characters.  When I started playing Xanapus again it took me another 6 months or possibly a year to get to level 50.  I have done in less than one month what I couldn’t do in 2002/2003.  You see how frustrating that is for me?  But it isn’t my fault that the game is much easier now than it was 10 years ago so that does make me feel a bit better.

My guild is still MIA, I only see someone on every once in a while.  Even though I am the only member of my guild who plays every day, or at least that’s the way it seems when I get on, I am not about to abandon them because I am still loyal despite the fact that they are all gone lol.  Besides, I don’t want to have to start all over with new people, and who knows if I will even continue playing in a month from now, I might get bored with it and quit again and I will have left my guild for nothing.

I started thinking today that I have abandoned Lord of the Rings Online for EverQuest so I tried logging in today and every time the launcher tries to launch the game, it crashes and I am unable to play.  They did an update on it so perhaps the update doesn’t work with HDMI for some reason.  I will have to plug the VGA back into the TV so I can see if that will work. It’s kind of frustrating because I’m almost positive my [hobbit] house maintenance fee needs to be paid for lol.

I am having fun again in EverQuest and that is a good thing.  I quit for many reasons but one of them was that I was bored to death.  I mean I would literally fall asleep while playing, that isn’t good is it?  So thankfully I am not bored now and I hope it can keep my attention for a bit longer.

How My Gay Pride Jello Did

On By Michel McDonaldIn gay prideLeave a comment

Last night was the Christmas Potluck dinner with PFLAG of Bakersfield.  I was so excited to bring in my Gay Pride Jello mold and nervous at the same time because I have never made one before.  I took it out of the mold at the house for this picture but then put it back in to go to the church.  We got there and flipped it out onto the plate and all was good until people started cutting into it.  The layers didn’t stick so they started coming apart.  Oh the humiliation!

Apparently nobody really gave two shits about the fact that they didn’t stick because there wasn’t that much left on the plate when we left.

We have never been to a pot luck together that didn’t involve his family reunions so Darrin was pretty bored.  I figured he would have gotten up and started mingling with people, I mean, he does that all the time so I was shocked when he picked this venue to become shy.  I on the other hand am always overly shy and never even look at anyone much less get up and walk around.  I do when I know people but I barely knew any of them.  The only way to do that is to continue to join in these events so I can get to know them better.

I did meet a few people who ended up becoming friends on Facebook with me.  One of them just so happens to share the same name with my first boyfriend, although I’m pretty sure it’s not him because my first boyfriend was deaf and this guy isn’t.  Unless there was a cure I didn’t hear about.

During one of the PFLAG announcements, the guy who had the Mic, named Ike who commented at our table how our names are Mike and Ike… you know, like the candy?, anyway he was naming names and telling people who they were yadda yadda yadda and he came to me and I was like whoa dude, I’m nobody yet lol.  But he mentioned me because we were new there and I made a comment to him at our table about how I never even knew Bakersfield had such a huge gay population.

Anyway, I had fun and I hope to be invited to more events.  Whether I will be able to go is another matter.

Forced Days Off

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

I’ve been writing my autobiography which takes a long time, especially for someone who is still learning how to write.  I think I’m doing a pretty good job.

Yesterday I couldn’t get anything done because I got a phone call from a friend of mine in the mid west who likes to talk on the phone for a long time.  We were on the phone for over an hour.

I tried to go back to editing a chapter and I start hearing “BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP” because the city was resurfacing the street in front of my house.  So instead of working I decided that I would get on the instant messenger and see who was online.

I talked to someone for an hour then went to the store to buy some lunch.  Frozen pizza by the way.  It was good.

I didn’t get anything done yesterday.

This morning I get up and walk the dog and the city men are back.  They are working on the other side of 3rd street.  They sprayed the oil on the street so the resurfacing stuff, whatever the heck it’s called will stick to it so they can spread it out and smash it down.

“BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP” is all I am hearing right now from my bedroom window.

I can hardly concentrate on writing or editing anything right now.  I can barely write this.

My new motherboard is coming today between 2-4pm via UPS so when that comes I will be able to transfer all of my chapters to my Open Office word processor so I can continue writing on that instead of my Chromebook.

Tomorrow is Chips day off which means another day off because there is no way I will be able to write with him home.  So… back to work on Friday lol.

Taste the @Twimbow

On By Michel McDonaldIn TwitterLeave a comment

A few days ago I was searching for something that had to do with rainbows, I think I was looking for an image. I really don’t remember but in my Google search I found Twimbow. It said it was in pre-Alpha so in order for me to use Twinbow I had to sign up and wait for approval. Well, I got an email today with my approval.

When I found it on Google I read that it was a new Twitter application so I thought what the heck, I could always use a new way to go on twitter. I’m not really much of a twit er wait no that came out wrong… or did it? I don’t get into twittering as much as a lot of people do so I don’t really use it. The problem with Twitter is that I am following so many people and I look away for 5 seconds and there are 20 more tweets. I look away for 5 minutes and there are 500 new tweets. It’s overwhelming so I don’t use Twitter as much as I would like to.

Twimbow is a bit different in the respect that you can choose what tweets you want to look at. Look at this image, this is the main page. The left column has direct messages, your mentions and people mentioning you, all color coded. The middle column are everyone’s tweets that you are following and the right column are the Twimbow mentions.

What I would love to see happen next is being able to either block certain people’s tweets or only show certain people’s tweets. That way you can block out all the spam tweets from people you really don’t know who you follow that advertise a lot.

The problem is, I follow everyone who follows me whether I know them or not. So because of that my twitter page is overwhelmed with tons of new tweets. I don’t want to unfollow those people but I don’t want to read their spam tweets either lol. And some of the people I follow are speaking in Russian. I can’t even read their tweets.

I said earlier that you can choose what tweets you see, this is what I mean. In the image above you might have noticed at the bottom it said Monitor. Well, if you click that you can type in some key words or phrases and anyone who tweets those words or phrases will show up under that word.

For this example I typed in 4 words, Nook, Kindle, Ebook and Gay. So every time someone says those words I will know it. You can also move those boxes around. When I typed them all out they were all vertical on the left side, I moved them so they are horizontal to see the tweets in them.

You could also type in certain people’s names like if I only want to look at Kathy Griffins tweets or any time someone said her name then those will be the only tweets I see. I typed Xanapus and my last tweet came up but because nobody ever says my name 😦 that won’t have any new tweets.

I would like to only follow certain people’s tweets like I said Kathy Griffin but also Alyssa Milano, Bethany, BravoAndy, hello Ross and a few other celebrities. I only want to look at friend tweets and celebrity tweets.

I like Twimbow because their site looks way cooler than Twitters does. Hopefully they will have ways of blocking or only allowing certain people so I can enjoy it even more.

MY BIRTHDAY!

On By Michel McDonaldIn BirthdaysLeave a comment

Yay another birthday has come. This will be my 38th birthday and I’ve been bombarded by emails from all these websites that I’ve joined over the years wishing me a happy birthday. I really love it.

However I know it’s the “computer” that told itself to email me these standard birthday wishes, templates if you will that they send to all their members. In fact they probably send at least 10 or 20 of those on a daily basis.

I don’t mind the impersonal greeting from a robot and the fact that nobody except for my very good friend Chris has sent me a birthday card and I haven’t gotten a card from my entire family.

Maybe its Karma since I forget everyone lol. That’s ok, I really don’t care. In fact I do much prefer getting an email greeting saying hey mike, I wanted to wish you a happy birthday. A e-card isn’t required. It’s the thought that counts you know?

Now I do know for a fact that tomorrow morning I’m going to wake up with the phone ringing and it will be my aunt Betty calling to sing the happy birthday song in my ear. That is going to happen, I already know that. I can’t wait. I would much rather get an email or a phone call than a present or even a card. I just want someone to say hi, I’m thinking about you today because it’s your special day.

I used to tell people on a daily basis that there are so and so amount of days left blah blah blah but I stopped doing that and nobody ever remembers anymore. Maybe that’s my bad lol. Oh well it’s cool.

Tomorrow were buying a cake and were going to cut it in half and bring the other half to Chips cousin Vedra and then we will eat our piece and have an extra piece for dessert for later. Then on Tuesday were going to pick up my birthday present that I pre-ordered from Game Stop called Lego Indiana Jones for the PSP. And while we are in the mall I have a coupon I got from Dairy Queen website from their Blizzard fan club to buy a blizzard and get one free for me. That will be my birthday itinerary hehe.