Sunday, March 30, 2003

Wine of the Night: Tim Adams 2000 Fergus - an Aussie Grenache. My, what a nice bottle of wine. Very very smooth - yet with that peppery Grenache taste. Good nose, great flavor, big and incredibly smooth going down. Robert Parker says it all: Tim Adams red wines are all boldly styled, fleshy, large-scale offerings that are best purchased by those who desire plenty of flavor. 8:53:27 PM    comment []

I've waited several weeks (eight actually) to blog about this, but there has been one silver lining to my current round of medical issues. Weight Loss!!!! Treatment for both Vulvodynia and Vestibulodynia includes tricyclic antidepressants - and not because one is depressed about one's illness (although it can very depressing). The tricyclics seem to help with the whole nerve and muscle malfunctioning that leads to both conditions. Two years ago when I last had issues, I used amitriptyline - an old reliable standby. However, over time it became less effective and when I increased the dosage, I became ravenous. Blimphood would have quickly ensued if I'd continued at a higher dose. So this time around, we tried Imipramine. All of the tricyclics are notorious for causing increased appetite and weight gain - including Imipramine. However, an extremely small subset of patients can experience anorexia when taking Imipramine. Anorexia is not loss of appetite. Instead, you're hungry but when you sit down to eat, you discover that after about three bites, you simply cannot emotionally continue to eat. Putting food in your mouth becomes almost impossible. Which is also distinct from Anorexia nervosa. So, the Slat Rat's extreme drug sensitivity resulted in Imipramine induced anorexia. It seems to be quite uncommon - neither my gynecologist, urologist, nor psychiatrist have ever had a patient with Imipramine induced anorexia. Usually, the exact opposite occurs. The anorexia only lasted for about two weeks. But that was enough to get me started. Over the past eight weeks, I've lost thirteen pounds - I lost the first seven in the first week. Which is a bit much - but I just couldn't eat. This makes up for a fifteen pound Remeron induced weight gain that occurred two years ago. I managed to lose six pounds but I could never get the other nine pounds. Well, I got those nine pounds and four more. I'm now at my old bike racing and ski racing weight. If I can't be a hard core jock anymore, at least I can look like one! So, I managed to lose thirteen pounds and still have all the wine and beer I wanted. I could be rich if I could market this! I may be now be skinny enought to pose for Niek! Although, I'd wear my Scooby Doo or Sponge Bob boxers instead of Victoria's Secret lingerie. 8:38:35 PM    comment []

I got one of these yesterday - A Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen 20GB MP3 player. I have an old old old 5 GB Nomad Jukebox 1 and have wanted to upgrade for quite awhile. I had originally planned to get 20GB iPod. However, the iPod has one HUGE drawback - It can only be used with one computer. I regularly use three different computers, my work desktop, my home desktop, and my laptop. I buy a CD(yes - I actually buy CD's), and then rip and encode it on to at least two of my PC's. I refuse to allow the RIAA via Apple to tell me that I can only use my MP3 player on one computer. So after much research, I ended up with the Zen for the following reasons: I wanted high capacity - I encode of all my MP3 files at 320 kbs, so I need tons of a space for my CD collection. 20GB is probably not enough, but it's the current high end. Form factor and size are also tres important. I don't want a big player. The Zen is just a tad bigger than the iPod. It's basically a perfect size. The controls and interface are also very nice and easy to use. It has slick little jog dial that is very intuitive and works well. Long battery life! I am so tired of batteries that require recharging after 2 1/2 hours of use. Whenever I traveled, I had to bring 3 sets (12 AA's) of batteries with me. Ugh...The Zen's battery should last 10 to 12 hours between charges. I also looked at the Archos and the Odyssey. Overall the Zen had better reviews. The Archos battery life was 5-6 hours and the Odyssey transfer software seemed to suck. So the Zen won out. However, all is not peaches and cream with the Zen. The big issues are: I know this is beyond belief, but the Zen's battery cannot be replaced. The current Creative stance is that when your battery dies, you toss your player. Geez...However, I decided to risk it anyway. It's my guess that battery replacement hacks will be developed. And by the way, did you know that the iPod has the same issue?! I certainly didn't! But there are already several iPod battery replacement hacks. I did not get the Firewire Zen - Best Buy was out so I ended up with the USB 2.0 version. This means poor lonely Hubzilla still doesn't have a firewire device hooked up to him. However, he still glows a very cute bright blue in the dark. 5:21:21 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Stephanie A. Kesler. Last update: 4/1/2003; 9:07:56 PM.