Goob Is Goofy

My parents must be so proud.

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:35:36 -0400

My parents must be so proud.

There’s always hope. Play ball!

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 23:20:18 -0400

There’s always hope. Play ball!

My Life was Worth $75,121.33

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 12:41:15 -0500

I often tell people I had Cancer Lite. Gun to your head and forced to contract any form of cancer out there, you’d probably go with something similar to what I had. It’s not that I make light of my experience, as certain aspects of it were hell, but all things considered it was a very treatable form with a very high chance of cure / treatment / remission / whatever the hell I’m in now.

I had my old Kindle stolen last October during a particularly drunken escapade in Manhattan. What angered me most wasn’t the $150 cost to replace it but all the articles I was going to lose. There’s a service called Readability that’s downright amazing. You find an article online from a magazine, newspaper, or blog and with a click of a button it strips all the excess crap away from the screen and either lets you read it immediately or sends it to your Kindle for later consumption.

Two weeks ago Steven Brill was a guest on The Daily Show. He’s a journalist who recently wrote a cover story for Time magazine shedding light on the absurd health care costs in our country. My Kindle pegs most articles I read at 15-20 minutes long. This one? Over 90 minutes.

Seriously, you need to read it. The opening paragraphs details Sean Recchi, a 42-year-old man with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma who was charged $83,900 for procedures that only cost around $15,000. He paid $1.50 for a single generic Tylenol. It cost him $283 for chest x-rays that Medicare patients get done for $20.44. The list goes on and on (and on and on and on and on.)

The article got me thinking about my own foray into the health care industry. To be completely fair, I had health insurance that didn’t try to screw me, by which I mean they upheld the agreement we made when I read the fine print and signed on the dotted line in 2009. Maybe I lucked out and got one of the good ones, maybe my insanely high yearly deductible was enough to satisfy them, or maybe it’s because they were happy to have an excuse to jack my premiums every year since (which they have.)

In 2010 I discovered the lump, had outpatient surgery to remove it, and there were a few doctor visits before and after both events. In 2011 I had monthly checkups, each taking around 15 minutes of “doctor time,” in addition to standard monthly blood tests, quarterly chest x-rays, and a few CT scans. Those led to discovering the tumors, which led to thirteen weeks of chemotherapy. Although if I recall correctly, I was only in the hospital for a total of 22 sessions, ranging from four to six hours each. In 2012 I was back to periodic exams and basic tests. The cost? Just over $75,000. And it’s not over yet.

Remember, this is “cancer lite” we’re talking about here. It wasn’t non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma or even stage III testicular cancer. Had I not had health insurance, I might not be bankrupt, but I’d be seriously fucked financially.

The quality of health care in this country is outstanding. I’m a living testament to it and not many people are trying to argue otherwise. But the health care industry? It’s fucked. It’s beyond fucked. There’s a reason every other industrialized nation in the world, and even half of the third world countries like Cuba, look at what we’ve set up here in the states and shake their heads.

Now how about we do something about it?

Annnnnnd that's a burn.

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 13:33:51 -0500

Annnnnnd that's a burn.:

The NRA says we need armed guards in every school in order to prevent shootings. Well, in that case…

This is what I do while not working.

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 13:03:19 -0500

This is what I do while not working.:

It syncs so well too!

slaughterhouse90210: “I tried not to think about my life. I did...

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 11:50:54 -0500

slaughterhouse90210:

“I tried not to think about my life. I did not have any good solid plans for it long-term - no bad plans either, no plans at all - and the lostness of that, compared with the clear ambitions of my friends (marriage, children, law school), sometimes shamed me. Other times in my mind I defended such a condition as morally and intellectually superior - my life was open and ready and free - but that did not make it less lonely.”
― Lorrie Moore, A Gate at the Stairs

I think this is funnier without any context.

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 10:39:21 -0400

I think this is funnier without any context.

True that.

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 07:38:08 -0400

True that.

Trying to remember the last time I was this excited for a...

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 01:16:46 -0400

Trying to remember the last time I was this excited for a non-sequel movie. No pressure.

Here’s a surprisingly compelling mini-documentary. Seven...

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:16:42 -0400

Here’s a surprisingly compelling mini-documentary. Seven strangers each have five minutes in an fMRI machine to “love someone as hard as they can.” The winner is the one who can generate the greatest level of activity in the regions of the brain associated with love.

[via Radiolab]

Nerds, snap your suspenders and play along as you guess the...

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 13:45:38 -0400

Nerds, snap your suspenders and play along as you guess the songs. I’m embarrassed at how long it took me to ID Halo.

I've Been Inked For Years

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 09:55:23 -0400

Originally drafted on April 16, 2011. This is part of a new series where I clean out my Drafts folder.

There’s an old proverb that says “the faintest ink is more powerful than the strongest memory.” At least I think that’s how it goes. I should probably write it down.

I was constantly terrified of writer’s block when I started Shyzer. I soon discovered the real threat was thinking of a great idea while sitting on the bus and then completely blanking once I finally got my ass to a computer. I spent dozens of hours trying to recreate moments in the off chance that it would help me remember whatever it was I thought I was forgetting. “Okay, so I was sitting on the couch like this, watching Price is Right and eating half a box of Froot Loops. Wait, no, maybe it was half a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch…”

I finally went out and bought one of these little spiral notepads when I was living in Australia. The fact that I was keeping great company was a mere bonus on top of never forgetting anything. They were the perfect dimension for riding in your back pocket, but the spiral inevitably destroyed itself. I blamed it on the lax Indonesian construction standards, but it probably had something to do with all the falling down that mysteriously coincided with my discovery of beer.

After some searching, I was able to find Field Notes. And yeah, that’s clearly a stock image. There’s no way my handwriting is that fancy.

This was a vastly superior option. I liked the grid layout and the pad itself held together with an unusually strong spine. However, the reason I had to use a stock image above was because every freaking pad I bought ended up looking like this.

I don’t know why in the world the cover is so flimsy, but it is. It came off on every pad I owned within weeks. It didn’t really bother me at first, but eventually the ink on exposed pages began to fade and blur, so once again I was in the market for a new pad.

Enter Moleskine. I’d used their larger notepads for journals, sketch & joke ideas, etc. But it was only recently that I tried out their softcover pocket pad. Tough as nail spine, lined pages, bookmark string, back pocket for scrap paper, and elastic band to keep it closed. You can’t beat it.

Oh, and don’t bother with any other pen than Uni-ball’s Jetstream. They’re like writing with magical Unicorn blood.

The Happiest Place On Earth

Sun, 16 Sep 2012 14:57:18 -0400

I have a giant world map hanging above my bed. You remember it, right?

It’s littered with primarily red stickers, all signifying places I’d like to visit one day. Lisbon, Dar es Salaam, Mongolia. Every so often there’s a red sticker with a black sharpie mark in the middle to represent somewhere I’d once wanted to visit and eventually did. Australia, Buenos Aires, Rome. However off to the center right, in the midst of quite a few red dots, is a bright yellow dot smack dab in the middle of Bhutan. I don’t know why, but I want to go there more than anywhere else.

I have for a while. I know I’ve built it up far too much in my head. It’ll most likely be a real world example of the old “never meet your heros” adage. And yet I don’t care. It’s become my personal Zihuatanejo over the years. It can do no wrong.

So This Is A Thing

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 12:58:00 -0400

While back in my hometown last month, I encountered what might have been the coolest car I’d ever seen. It was similar to the one pictured above except it was dedicated to the far superior Skittles. I scrambled for my phone, but the light quickly changed and it drove away as I stared wide eyed, mouth agape, and utterly perplexed. I euphorically spun around to see if any of my fellow passengers caught sight of the same magnificent beast only to be greeted with six eyes looking at me as if I’d lost my mind.

Goob: Wha…guys…did you not see that car?!
Martha: Yeah, what about it?
Goob: …
Tommy: They’re all over the place. I think one guy in our neighborhood has a Mr. Goodbar one.
Goob: … …
Tommy: ?
Goob: !!!

Thank goodness I’m not the only person tickled by this phenomenon. I love it. How have I never heard of nor seen this before?!

Every day I’m reminded of how much I know nothing about.

slaughterhouse90210: “What we, or at any rate what I, refer to...

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:03:22 -0400

slaughterhouse90210:

“What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory - meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion - is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling.”
― William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow

slaughterhouse90210: “Think of the first time you slept with...

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 21:42:55 -0400

slaughterhouse90210:

“Think of the first time you slept with someone, or the first time you fell in love: that blinding explosion that left you crackling at the fingertips with electricity, initiated and transformed. I tell you that was nothing, nothing at all, beside the power of putting your lives, simply and daily, into each other’s hands.”
—Tana French, In the Woods

slaughterhouse90210: “At the age of eleven or thereabouts women...

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 13:30:54 -0400

slaughterhouse90210:

“At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Uneasy Money

This Post Earned the Goob Stamp of Approval

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 16:42:23 -0400

I made a hanko stamp!

For the uninitiated, they’re actually really easy to make. I tried all three methods and can attest that printing block material is the best way to go. The eraser / cardboard style was tedious at best, but the eraser was actually a happy medium if you’ve got the patience and a simple enough design.

You should go make one. They’re fun.

Dog Days of Summer

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 23:16:36 -0400

I’m not much of a smoker. I would classify myself as staunchly against the activity as a whole if it weren’t for those damn cigars. There’s something about sitting outside during the summer months with a cigar in one hand, a cold drink in the other, and an unfolding sunset in the distance that gets my spirits in a tizzy.

It’s so weird growing old.

slaughterhouse90210: “We sometimes encounter people, even...

Wed, 23 May 2012 22:23:31 -0400

slaughterhouse90210:

“We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment