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David LeBlanc

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word of advice [Apr. 29th, 2008|05:21 pm]
be very careful when trying alternative smoking methods for tobacco

nicotine overdose sucks
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pounding vitamin supplements [Apr. 29th, 2008|12:10 am]
vitamin b6, melatonin, and valerian

msybe i'll get neuropathy

or maybe just sleep well

unrelated note: gta4 is the best game of all time
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nerd [Mar. 31st, 2008|08:06 pm]
playing d&d

painting miniatures

i'm a level 3 cleric

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i finished something i started [Mar. 16th, 2008|10:16 am]
well sort of



it's an amplifier and it worked on my second attempt

i still need stuff to make a case for it
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new tv [Mar. 4th, 2008|10:56 pm]
mounted 50" 1080p plasma

this thing is amazing

and slightly misaligned. oops.
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"wireless" [Feb. 9th, 2008|02:51 am]


The Xbox 360 is the only current generation console that does not have built in wifi. Even the handhelds have it. They also need to explain what they mean by "wireless ready," because the PS3 and the Wii both use wireless controllers out of the box. I can only assume that they mean "The Xbox 360 is the only console that is wireless ready, as opposed to wireless enabled." Clever way to put it, I guess.
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tales from the ghetto hospital [Jan. 29th, 2008|04:30 am]
Not having a primary care physician, I had to go to the nearest ER for my eyes. This happened to be at the Doctor's Medical Center in San Pablo.

I arrived at the ER, signed in, and sat down. It was about 10 AM, and the waiting room was about half full. It was about an hour and a half before I was called in to see the triage nurse. She asked some questions, filled out some forms, and checked my vitals. She took me over to read the eye chart, and handed me a styrofoam cup to cover my other eye with. As I was reading the chart, I had to ask her a few times not to cover the bottom half of the letter she was pointing to with her finger. Once that was done, she took me back to an exam room. The chair looked like they found it next to a dumpster behind a dentist's office, and it wobbled as I sat down.

She handed me a gown and a blanket and told me the doctor would be with me shortly. I put on the gown, and shortly after, covered myself with the blanket as well. He came in and asked me the same questions as the triage nurse. This is where I first began to feel uncomfortable. Shouldn't he read what the nurse wrote first? He examined my eyes, and told me that it was a subconjunctival hemorrhage, but that he was not sure what caused it. It would probably clear up on its own, but he wanted to do some blood tests to make sure it wasn't more serious.

After about another 15 minutes or so, a nurse walks in with a tray. She asks me if anyone has drawn my blood yet (she doesn't know?). I tell her no, and she begins. She ties the tourniquet, and then asks me why I don't have an armband, as if it was my responsibility to get one. She stops, and goes and gets me a band before continuing. At this point, I was pretty uneasy, so I just clenched my fist and looked away as she worked. Fortunately, she can do that part right.

She caps the vials of blood, and gathers up the waste. As she's walking over to the biohazard bin, she managed to spill some of my blood on the floor. Oops. She grabs a paper towel, wipes it up a bit, and tosses it in the bin. And misses. She starts walking back over to the table, stops, looks down, and exclaims "Oh, I stepped in it!" She throws another paper towel on the floor and wipes up the rest of the blood with her foot. She gathers the blood samples and leaves the room.

Another twenty minuts go by, and a different nurse comes in to the room. She asks me if anyone has drawn my blood yet. Uh...yes? Why don't you know this? She apologizes and leaves the room. Another ten minutes pass, and the doctor comes back. He tells me the blood work will take about an hour. At this point, I'm glad I remembered to charge my phone, because otherwise I'd be staring at a wall for an hour. The blood work comes back clean. The doctor gives me a prescription for an antibiotic, even though it was pretty clear I don't have a bacterial infection (I'm already on an antibiotic that's approved for treating bacterial conjunctivitis). I told him I wasn't going to fill it, and he didn't argue.

It's about 1:30 PM at this point, and I head back out to the waiting room. My roommate is still being examined, so I sit back down. There's a new crowd of people in the waiting room now, the most conspicuous being the woman lying face down on the floor, moaning. It looked and sounded like she was giving birth, but she was face down. Maybe that's how her mother birthed her. The personnel seem to be making an active effort to avoid paying attention to her, and I can't really blame them. I got the impression that she was a regular. Hypochondriac, junkie, or both.

A bit later, a man comes in wearing a white shirt drenched in blood and a towel pressed against his arm. He had been bitten by a stray dog, and it tore a chunk of flesh off his arm. They took him back right away, stopped the bleeding, and then sent him out into the waiting room. He was still waiting when we left about 45 minutes later. I hope for his sake that the dog wasn't diseased.

My favorite story comes from my roommate, though. He was taken to his exam room, and after a few minutes, an orderly comes in with a tray full of needles and other fun toys. He looks up at the orderly with a horrified expression, and the orderly asks "Wait, what's your name?" When he realizes he's in the wrong room, he apologizes and leaves.

Needless to say, I'll not be going back.

And in the meantime, I'm a vampire.
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back from hospital [Jan. 28th, 2008|03:03 pm]
diagnosis: subconjunctival hemorrhage. it should get reabsorbed and clear up in 2-3 weeks.
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need doctor [Jan. 28th, 2008|01:32 am]
this is really nasty )
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need vpn [Jan. 21st, 2008|03:08 am]
Does anyone have access to a Cisco compatible VPN client for 64 bit Vista? This seems to be the only problem that switching to 64 bit has given me.
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Voice Post [Jan. 12th, 2008|08:01 am]
VoicePost Help
12K 0:03
“This is a test.”

Auto-Transcribed Voice Post
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presidential candidate quiz [Jan. 7th, 2008|03:16 am]
no big surprise here

86% Mike Gravel
86% Dennis Kucinich
82% Chris Dodd
82% Barack Obama
78% John Edwards
77% Hillary Clinton
76% Joe Biden
76% Bill Richardson
43% Rudy Giuliani
35% John McCain
32% Ron Paul
25% Mike Huckabee
25% Mitt Romney
16% Tom Tancredo
15% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz
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back from chicago [Dec. 11th, 2007|12:51 am]
I forgot how much I love Chicago. We had an awesome time. Bratwurst at Christkindlmarket, wandered around the Art Institute, visited a hookah lounge, had some great pizza and some really great ribs, ample supply of alcohol, got about two hours of ice skating in Millenium Park on Sunday evening, and enjoyed a relaxing couple hours at Steamworks. I wish I had that much fun in Chicago back when I used to live there. I'll certainly be going back real soon.

As much fun as this weekend was though, it's great to be home. As good as some of the food we had was, nothing beats homemade curry. I'm so spoiled. :(
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kindle first impressions [Dec. 3rd, 2007|01:52 pm]
My Kindle showed up this morning, and I figured I'd share my first impressions of it.

I've seen a lot of people complaining about the appearance of the device, but I think it looks really nice. It's supposed to have a modest appearance. The idea is not to draw attention to the device, and I think they achieved that quite well.

As far as using the device goes, it was pretty easy to figure out basic functions. I'd say it's comparable to the iPod as far as ease of use goes. The less technically inclined may have trouble getting used to the select wheel, but probably no more so than the iPod's click wheel. It has that "revision A" feel to it, though. They'll be redesigning it at some point, and I think the interface is the first thing that needs to be addressed. It's good, but it could be a lot better.

The e-ink display is really cool, but the immaturity of the technology is still obvious. It's limited to four shades of gray, it's slow to refresh, and it doesn't quite have the contrast of an LCD or a printed page. I don't think these problems detract significantly from the reading experience, though, and the battery life that e-ink gets is incredible.

I'm excited to see how far they can take this technology. I envision a high resolution, full color, touchscreen eBook reader, where all of the user's interaction is through the display itself. Imagine just flicking your finger to the right to turn the page. There's a lot of potential here, and I hope the Kindle sparks the public's intrest in ebook readers. It certainly seems like it has so far.

EDIT: Another though I had is that it would be awesome if publishers started distributing textbooks as ebooks. I assume some do it already, but having all your class materials available electronically would be incredible.

Imagine: You register for your classes, you get a list of the books you need with links right there to buy them. As soon as the professor prepares the syllabus, they upload it to a publishing service, presumably something that the school pays Amazon a subscription fee for, and it's delivered to all the students enrolled in the class. You write a paper for your class, and submit it the same way, and it's delivered right to the professor. They read it, make annotations on the device itself, and deliver the annotated copy back to you. The more I think about it, the more amazing it seems. I think this really is revolutionary.

(cross posted to SA, in case anyone sees both posts and is wondering)
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the perfect snack [Nov. 26th, 2007|04:53 am]
hot links and beer at 5 am.

good times.

it's nice having a gas grill right outside the back door.
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kindle [Nov. 20th, 2007|11:12 pm]
Amazon Kindle. I bought one. I'm so impulsive. :(

It's going to be so cool, though.
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Voice Post: [Nov. 17th, 2007|07:00 am]
VoicePost Help
9K 0:02
“dook”

Transcribed by: multiple users
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of montreal [Nov. 14th, 2007|05:00 am]
went to see of montreal last night, and it was a pretty awesome show. highly recommended.

i'd also like to note that last.fm is pretty great for finding out about shows.
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calzone pants [Nov. 7th, 2007|04:04 am]
I am reheating a calzone.

Also trying out this LJ client.
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decisions [Nov. 1st, 2007|07:58 pm]
Originally, I was planning to buy a new desktop PC this month, but I'm getting my old one sent out instead. That leaves me wondering what I should do. I could buy a few parts, and slowly work my way toward a new computer, and use the old one for a media center. I could go to MFF in two weeks and get drunk and contract GRIDS, I could get an xbox 360, I could (maybe) get an HDTV, or I could be smart and save it.
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