Iced that sucker

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How can you injure your foot to the point of being unable to walk and unable to sleep due to the pain, and not remember how you did it? Well, don’t ask me because I can’t remember how I did it. I’ve had to cancel a lecture at the Art Institute of California (San Francisco) because of this bad foot.

A family friend recommended a Chinese doctor, and I went in to get acupunctured, but it only made my foot worse–the damn thing swelled up and looked like a pig’s foot, but was fine before the acupuncture. The doctor’s attitude didn’t impress us either, with his diatribe about how western medical science is inferior and western doctors don’t know a damn thing about foot injuries (right. Sports stars that make millions a year are all wrong to have western doctors treat their sports injuries), and the fact he made light of the pain I was in, as if he knew better how much pain I was really in and that I was only putting on a show. For who?? What do I have to gain by putting on a show? If I’m in a lot of pain, then I’m in a lot pain–what right did he have to tell me my pain is no big deal?

This doctor also told us not to use ice, and to use Chinese Red Flower Oil on it and heat wrap it. Well, my western medical common sense tells me that you do NOT heat a swollen injury–you ice that sucker until it’s no longer swollen. So, Elena and I decided to go against everything this Chinese doctor said and followed our western medical common sense–we iced my foot for a good half hour, and guess what? The swelling went down, and I actually slept well that night instead of being kept awake by the pain like the previous nights. My foot doesn’t hurt nearly as much now as it did for the past few days after we iced it; so much for the hubris of that Chinese doctor. We promptly cancelled our next appointment with him.

A few days later, we were introduced to another Chinese doctor, who is supposed to be the teacher of the previous doctor. He stuck me with an acupuncture needled on my hip, and worked that sucker hard, trying to find the nerve that connected to my foot. Omigod it hurt like hell the way he twisted and twirled that needle around. Finally he got it and I felt an electric shock in my shin. According to him, what he did was to numb and relax my foot so I can move it more freely and let all the built-up fluids get flushed away and excreted. Well, my hip hurt for two days and my foot didn’t get any better at all. So what did Elena and I do? We decided to ice that sucker some more and ignore what the doctor said. And guess what? It worked. Simply icing my foot for 23~30 minutes every 4 hours or so really worked. A few days later I was able to walk again. Now I’m walking like a normal person again, instead of a wannabe gansta rapper.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that Chinese medicine can be effective for certain things, but it was wrong for that first Chinese doctor to outright belittle western medical science, and it didn’t help either that his teacher’s effort didn’t do a thing for my foot.

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I came *this* close to bidding on an old Terratec soundcard that’s got the Waldorf Microwave XT PC extension, which is identical to the normal Microwave XT, except you can’t expand it beyond 10 voices like you could with the normal one, and you don’t get those sexy 40+ knobs to play with. I even have a working old PC I had put together in 1998 that’s still working and has ISA slots for the soundcard, but in the end, I decided I’d rather hold out for the normal hardware unit, as the Waldorf allure to me is not just the sound capabilities, it’s also that funky “oh-so-German” industrial design. Seriously, there’s just no comparison between this:

and this:

My dream is to have the lovely bright orange Microwave XT right next the the rare bright yellow Q–they’d make a lovely couple.

I’ve been researching the Dave Smith Poly Evolver recently, and it’s quite a beast. I’m a bit confused as to how few voices it has though–or am I not understanding the concept of that synth? Maybe they way it’s structured doesn’t require more voices for complex sounds? Although it isn’t exactly sexy (it looks a bit like sci-fi B-movie spaceship controls) , it’s still pretty easy on the eyes:

Rumors for Sonar 6 has been making the rounds–I can’t wait to see what the Cakewalk boys have cooked up this time. I long for the day when Sonar’s included arsenal can go head-to-head with Logic–it’ll be a beautiful day because I’d stop feeling that intense jealousy towards Logic users (as I’m too practical to ever buy a Mac. No don’t flame me on this–just agree to disagree).

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Came across this quote recently, and I thought it was worth repeating here:

“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive.

To them… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off…

They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating.

– Pearl Buck”

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I finally finished Dreamfall, and unfortunately, my opinion about it didn’t change much from the last time I wrote about the game. It’s really too bad, since I was totally ready to fall in love with it, yet the long-awaited sequel to The Longest Journey just didn’t sweep me off my feet.

On the other hand, I’ve been having a blast with F.E.A.R. Combat, the free multiplayer Sierra just released. It’s a bit strange to start each respawn with only one firearm, since the concept of a sidearm in addition to the main weapon has been a time-honored tradition for FPS games. Hell, that’s how it is in real life too. I guess they figured the sidearm is next to useless for most situations. Since the other CQB type modes are faster-paced in comparison, the CTF mode in outdoor terrain feels like an interesting mix, as the long-range scope gives it a more realistic military feel, and the terrain itself hides players quite well–almost Ghost Recon-ish.

Dark Messiah of Might & Magic’s demo was interesting. I have a soft spot for fantasy FPS, since it’s so rarely done (and almost never done well), and I thought the demo’s FPS melee combat was fun enough to consider purchasing the full game; however, I really hated the first half of it–voice instructions from some invisible mentor is such a tiring cliche, and the dialogue/voice acting was irritating as well–it couldn’t have possibly been any more cliched.

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Elena and I finally broke down and got a new cellphone. We were holding out until we’re sure where we’ll be moving to next, but life just became too inconvenient without one, and we’d rather face changing phone number later if we move to a different area code. We researched Cingular and T-Mobile and while I liked Cingular’s rollover minutes, Elena preferred the cheaper price and more minutes of T-Mobile (and they both boasted better coverage–hard to tell who’s the delusional one, so I just pretended they’re both lying). Of course, the wife always wins, so we left the store with a Nokia 6103 that’s got a T-Mobile logo on it.

It’s been years since I’ve needed a cellphone (although Elena always had one), and boy, they’ve gotten quite advanced. The last two cellphones I had were all from five years ago, so the technology definitely moved on. I tried making my own custom mp3 ringtone, but found out I’d have to pay $5.99 a month just to be able to upload custom multimedia stuff to the phone. It’s really not worth it IMO. A data cable for connecting to a computer is also ridiculously expensive, and what can you do with it? Just downloading cellphone photos, uploading to do lists, notes, images..etc. I think I’ll just let the phone be a phone and not cause it any identity crisis. Afterall, we got it for free, so it’s not like we paid for all those fancy features. Besides, the phone’s camera is next to useless in low-light situations, which is one of the most common situations you’d want to use a camera (funny how that works, isn’t it?).