awkwardly: 02/01/2009

Medication Roulette

To save money on prescription medications, our HMO offers a reduced rate if you buy a three month supply by mail. Cool. Just send the written doctor's prescription by mail, guess at how long it will take to reach them, guess at how long it will take them to process the order, and hope they can get it to you before you run out of your current prescription. Now what do I do when I run out tomorrow and the shit is still in the mail? Ask the doctor to write yet another prescription for 5 days worth to carry me through until it arrives in the mail? Or am I supposed to buy 30 days worth at the local pharmacy at full price because that is the convenient increment and the only way to get it in a timely manner?

If there are any pharmaceutical or medical "insurance" execs reading this, could you please make it less convenient/more dangerous for my health and my family's health by screwing with the logistics even more? How about if you offer even bigger savings for anyone who will take part in a drugstore scavenger hunt? You tell me it's available at one of the stores within 5 or 20 or 80 miles of my home (offer bigger savings the further we have to drive drive), but I have to drive to every one of them and ask if they have the pills for me. Or maybe a scratch-off lottery type ticket at each store reveals whether I'll get my prescription at that store or have to keep searching.

Because this is all just a matter of savings. I can afford prescriptions at the full copay price, with all the money that grows on trees in my back yard.

First Beaver Seen in Detroit River in 75 years

"A single beaver lodge has been discovered in an intake canal at Detroit Edison's Conners Creek power plant on Detroit's east riverfront. Edison workers using motion-sensitive cameras caught photographs and video of the beaver in November.

"John Hartig, the Detroit River refuge manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said beavers were last spotted in the Detroit River at least 75 years ago, possibly as long ago as a century. Their return signals that a multiyear effort to clean up the river has paid off."

The actual headline from the Detroit Free Press was "Leave it to beaver to prove river cleaner", but the jokes come easier the way I phrased it.

Let's Get It Free

[This was a link to a free download of "Let's Get It On" from Amazon, which expired at midnight on Valentine's Day.]

Chased Thru Freakout Fields

No narrative in this one, just some funny or interesting clips I cobbled together from public domain movies. See if you can stand it. Pieces are taken from:

Beast from Haunted Cave (1959)
Death Warmed Up (1985)
Sword of Lancelot (1963)
Dragnet (6 Nov 1952)
The Battle of Russia (1943, Why We Fight part 5)
TNT Jackson (1975)
Attack from Space (1964)
Maciste in Hell (1925)
Evil Brain from Outer Space (1964)
Slipstream (1989)
Twister's Revenge! (1987)
Black Hooker (1974)
Algiers (1938)

Some background music is from "Piranha, Piranha" (1972). Clip from "Path to Basketcase" is used with Melinda's permission.

I wish I could take credit for that woman's scream turning into a jet landing, but I lifted it from TNT Jackson.

The audio files "080316 Dodge truck revving in driveway" by BoilingSand and "flyby" by krillion were used under a Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 license. Both files can be found on www.freesound.org.

While I'm at it, here's another video I haven't posted yet:
The Path to Basketcase: A Hero's Journey

"The Path to Basketcase: A Hero's Journey" is what you'd see on dvd extras if there was an extended, unrated 2-disc special edition dvd of Melsbasketcase.

I forgot to give credit for one of the photos. "The Hide & Leather House, Napa" from the Flickr stream of "Dan in LA", is used (I hope fairly) under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic License. (Is it derivative to show the complete photo in an unrelated video?)

Melsbasketcase theme is by Cody Montoya.

Over Xmas weekend, I watched a mess of dvd commentaries and special features, and I was sickened by the smarmy, gushing public relations events that pass for "making of" videos. So here's the result. Enjoy.

Are You Ready?

More peanut recalls, blah blah blah, and then this: "In a startling revelation on Saturday, the Atlanta Journal Constitution said the president of Peanut Corp., Stewart Parnell, serves on an industry advisory board that helps the U.S. Department of Agriculture set quality standards for peanuts."

I try to be a pacifist. I'm opposed to the death penalty. But I read this kind of shit and it makes me think the Cultural Revolution in China wasn't such a bad idea, just a little unfocused. They went too broad.

If the current government is not going to stop rich motherfuckers from being lawless and unaccountable, I'm ready to move along to some system that will.