Number Scales

Whenever I go to the doctor for anything involving pain, they require a statement of how bad the pain is "on a scale of one to ten." This drives my brain up the wall every time for the five seconds before I answer.

I have to calculate two things: 1) how much pain I'm in, and 2) what to translate that to for the sake of the doctor.

If you just think about that for a minute, the problem should be obvious. The metric system exists so that, albeit with some conversions, any general physical measurement can be expressed in universally recognizable terms. Doctors do the same with understanding their patients' subjective conditions via the pain scale. However, the key word here is "subjective."

For starters, it's a principle of philosophy that every individual's "feelings" are unique, and nobody knows exactly how another feels any sense or emotion. Therefore it is impossible to convey pain felt with complete accuracy (by corollary, the number scale may be the best we can get, but that doesn't lessen its flaws). Then to ensure adequate communication the patient would ideally have to know their doctor on a personal level, to be familiar with how they would interpret the information. Likewise the doctor should know their patient and how they would rationalize the formulation of their rating, taking into account their pain tolerance, if they're the type who never give the highest rating out of acknowledgement that it could be higher, etc.

Unfortunately these tend to be mere guesswork (if given any thought at all), and the combined displacement from both parties carries the potential for misunderstanding. It's not likely to cause improper treatment; but it always occurs to me that I may be giving rather groundless information because I have no idea what others typically feel in such a condition, don't know what "the most pain I could endure" is, and so on.

Indie Singer and Final Fantasy Fan

I'm pleased to present something, or rather someone, I recently stumbled upon in the music world. Kate Covington (or katethegreat19) is a singer/songwriter who creates beautiful lyric arrangements, specializing in Final Fantasy. One can find countless musicians on YouTube performing whatever they are fans of, but Kate is one of those gems who goes about her work like a professional cover artist, or rather is on the very path of being one. She directs her own choir and has successfully struggled to copyright and release her songs.

Her style is one that I have a particular weakness for, that of mystical sweetness and wonder which I cannot fully describe; here is the video I first encountered (lyrics provided in the video info):

I wish her the best of luck. (She has one of the few modern singing voices that I don't have tolerance issues with, after all!)

[Kate's YouTube channel - more links from there]

I Got Spirit Tracks

Sounds like a psychological condition.

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks was on sale at Target today, and I had a couple gift cards to use. Soon I'll have completed every Zelda game to date (again), which is bound to be better than resorting to the über-easy and linear Super Mario Galaxy to stave off boredom.

Newer trailers have revealed things possibly (probably) more bizarre than Link's train, which alone made me scoff at the game. I don't even know what to say about these (go watch a trailer yourself if you want an idea), but as far as the plot goes, I can say this: I doubt it will work unless the kingdom with the disappearing Spirit Tracks is some foreign land outside of Hyrule, because there's no plausible way Hyrule could have had them and a locomotive all this time without there being some legend about them. A game cannot tie into a string of sequential storylines and introduce something out of nowhere that has supposedly been there for ages. Majora's Mask works because Link finds himself in a strange land. Minish Cap works because it is completely independent of all other games. Spirit Tracks must necessarily fall into the Majora's Mask and Phantom Hourglass category, because it's a direct sequel to the latter and continues Link's adventures after Wind Waker.

Unfortunately, this is not likely because the train has some form of the Hyrule crest right on it's front. In any case, my previous rant all but guarantees that it won't be as good a story as Phantom Hourglass; or at the very least, that it will be a better pastime to make fun of it than to rationalize it with its predecessor. I'll only know for sure after I play it.

Super Metroid Intro Fail

I was just trying out a Super Metroid hacking utility, and apparently the text editing has more restrictions than they let on.If you look closely, the text is at the top, reduced to a ghost by two cutscenes running simultaneously. Samus and the exploding Mother Brain never went away from the first scene, then the intro skipped to the last scene, which stuck as the final line of text went across the top. I only did what the instructions said I could, and look what happened! It appears the lab computers are blowing up. Sometimes I'm surprised this machine doesn't do so itself.

Random thoughts on the health care debate:

I knew the bill was dangerous when all I heard from the proponents was that the current system is messed up. That kind of logic going into the bill is a bright red flag. Changing a bad situation doesn't mean you'll make it better! This is like using Lysol on raw chicken instead of cooking it to eliminate the bacteria. It's the wrong fix, and we'll suffer greatly from it.

Tonight all I heard from the liberals was "We're doing the right thing!" Reeeally? And you're a great sorcerer. And I'm the king of Cashmere. (~Madmartigan, Willow) A statement that bland isn't even an argument. This is a lame attempt to gain support by easing people's consciences through unaccounted moral support -- empty assurance at it's best.

Pelosi's laugh is unprofessional and unnerving. I must photoshop her head onto Dolores Umbridge.

"Americans will come to remember this day!" You bet they will. Only they won't care about your "justice" and whatnot; when the country is in an even worse situation than it is now, they will remember this day and despise you for it.

The old computer is back up.

And now it's running Windows XP, which I don't like as well as 2000, with the exception of a handful of programs running inherently faster. At any rate, I now have access to my ideas and ambitions of old, though they are amidst virtual cobwebs now.

***FLASH***
The computer just hallucinated that the shift key was being held constantly. Then it deleted everything I was typing and tried to navigate away from this web page. After logging out, logging back on was impossible. A reboot was necessary to neutralize the threat.


Sooooooooo. This kind of stuff is why I'm going to buy a Macbook. Plus, by the time I get stuff sorted out from the long period of downtime and the randomly corrupting transition to XP, I might as well have waited to get my own computer and hand-pick the stuff I want to transfer, enabling a fresh and uncluttered start. Such would also make it simpler to deal with the programs, etc. I have that are now a version or two behind.

Anyway, it's now at least possible for me to blog should I have the time and mind to, but I can't promise anything as my personal projects are still going to be on hold for the most part. I also apologize for all the stuff that I would have blogged when I couldn't. Some great (and original) material, from jokes to serious rationalizations, never made it here, but the moments have past and the most practical thing I can do now is just let the missed be missed.

On a personal note, my life in general has been in a rut for some time, but there are signs of it finally getting better. I mention this in part because one's psychological state has almost as much affect on blogging as computer issues do. To be honest, I envy the first months of my blog. I desire the state of life I was in then, with freedom and creativity flowing betwixt the banks of responsibility and well-being. I hope to arrive at that stream once more, but the mist from the mountains of college and adulthood change obscures my vision. A lamp dances through the fog, but I never find myself catching its guiding ray. The most solid object is that of a side-road that would bear me off to the detour of a fifth year in high school; and though I choose to walk it, I cannot now discern what the road is made of. It seems to shift as a gaze upon it, and at times I wonder if the distortion results from heat waves that would burn my feet. I'll take the burns if I must, trusting that a cool pond lies somewhere along the path.

(I am sick of American literature.)