The Swamp

I've heard Pristiq has a withdrawal syndrome too. I consider myself an expert on Effexor now, but I am still clueless about these other newer drugs. But my knee jerk, if any friend or family member is prescribed Effexor is to say 'no, you should not take that drug'.

I don't think I am going to need medication anytime soon. If I'm wrong, I will be much more informed and involved in the choice of med. To be fair, when my doc chose Effexor for me 14 years ago (and I had few questions about his choice), these effects of acute (skipping a dose) and chronic withdrawal (termination of use) were not known.

And I will not take this drug again until first I fail several others.

As far as trusting or relying upon the judgment and actions of the FDA, you do not want to get me started. Far deeper than my general attitude toward the 21st Century US govt. My big mentor, Dr. Wally, after he retired from the med school at Davis he worked for/consulted for the FDA for a decade. I passed on an opportunity to work there a few years back. Once a good idea, that did the public a lot of good, now just another fucking joke.

I went on and off Pristiq, can't even remember anymore why I went off. My doctor at the time described it as a "purified" Effexor, saying it had similar properties and worked the same way, but without the side effects. I had no side effects going on or coming of Pristiq, and no side effects at all from Cymbalta. Although, now that I think about it, I went off of Pristiq to try Vybrid. I had a 2 day long severe migrain to the point where I couldn't move. I went back and forth between the couch and bed for two days, praying to Yahweh that I could fall asleep to make it go away. My doctor chalked it up to Vybrid, but I wonder if it was Pristiq withdrawal?

I didn't detail it here, but I used Prozac to prevent/dampen the withdrawal effects of the Effexor. I had some symptoms that at first I thought was the Effexor, but after a couple of days I attributed to the Prozac. I quit the Prozac, been 'cold turkey' with no medication at all for just over two weeks now. Describing the symptoms, much less proper attribution is difficult, complex.

And I use 'headache' loosely. I've had at least a half dozen distinct types of headaches during this process. I now know what a migraine feels like; fortunately that variety only lasted a couple of days.

These medications are amazing, they save thousands of lives and relieve millions of people from horrendous suffering. But there are a lot of unknown unknowns, made worse by the huge profits which drive so much.

howard wrote: Man, I could hit 300# and become Homer Simpson by the end of the year without hardly trying. But I think I'll try the other direction. It should be easier to lose and keep off weight off this drug.

Howard. Towel Rack.

Syb and Howard, what are your thoughts on weed as an alternative to the prescriptions you've taken? Assuming it was legal where you live, would you use marijuana as an alternative? What about weed and AA? Can you be in AA/recovering alcoholic and partake, or is that a slippery slope? Also, while AA is probably the most historically successful means of recovery, is there any other useful method of moderation that works?

govmentchedda wrote:Syb and Howard, what are your thoughts on weed as an alternative to the prescriptions you've taken? Assuming it was legal where you live, would you use marijuana as an alternative? What about weed and AA? Can you be in AA/recovering alcoholic and partake, or is that a slippery slope? Also, while AA is probably the most historically successful means of recovery, is there any other useful method of moderation that works?

I've tried self medicating with weed. Made the depression much worse. The last thing a depressed person needs is to live inside his head even more. My second year of law school I found the most effective medication was a handful of vicodin or percocets and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black. That was really only sustainable at a pace of one night a week. Friday nights for a semester were movie/scotch/painkiller night, while my roommate spent the night studying just 6 feet away with no idea. I finally got help and went on Wellbutrin around graduation. Knowing the Bar Exam was around the corner was the push I needed. Wellbutrin is great, as it gives you more energy when you first go on it, and it really has few side effects. Most anti-depressants can cause sexual dysfunction or decrease libido (fortunately I never had those issues), but Wellbutrin is about the only one that goes the other way. Not sure if it was the Wellbutrin or the stress of studying for the Bar, hours alone in my room, or a need to procrastinate, but I was jerking off 5 times a day for a month or two. Let's see your weed do that!

I am very much in favor of THC as medicine for anything it helps with. There are some effects to long term use, I am sure, but it is a hell of a lot better than synthetic drugs. God made pot, so you know it's good!

Chedda, I'm in favor of weed as an alternative for anything.

I am not aware of any evidence for weed successfully treating depression. For many people, myself included, weed exacerbates a depressed mood. In the past when I was depressed, I drank, and I did not feel depressed anymore (until the next morning). Same for opiate drugs.

If some folks find relief from their depression with weed, of course they should use it. Some have reported this, sure, but just as alcohol temporarily relieved the symptoms while chronically worsened my depression, there is a danger that regular weed use could have this effect. My guess is the risk is much much less than the same phenomenon with alcohol, which is well documented.

My day today:

Took an airport shuttle at 0345 Germany time to Frankfurt international. Waited in a line for the line for the service desks to open to issue tickets. It opened and I waited in that line.

Got my ticket and made my way to customs to check my passport. Customs doesn't open that early so I waited in a line for that line to open. Line finally opened. Waited a while in that line.

Got through that line and finally got into the security line. I forgot I had curry ketchup in my carryon. They confiscated that. I was bummed.

Got to the terminal and gate. Waited in line to board. Finally left Germany.

Landed at O'Hare, Chicago. Disembarked there late. Waited in a line to have my passport scanned. I then waited in another line to hand my passport receipt to the TSA guy. After 30~40 minutes I finally left the international terminal. I then wait in line to get on the train to get to my other terminal.

Got there finally. Plane left. Thanks, customs! I proceeded to the gate to learn that I had to go to a customer service desk. I passed this desk on my way to the gate. Ugh.

Waited in another line to figure out what plane I'm now bored on. Routed through Dulles to get to Phoenix. Greeeeaaaaat. Waited in line to board. Finally left Satan's Asshole aka Chicago O'Hare.

Get to Dulles. Make my way to the gate to be told by the lady that it's closed and to come back in an hour when the "Phoenix crew" opens it again.

I went to Wendy's. Baconators are delicious. And now I'm waiting in another line to board my flight to Phoenix. It's 1735 east coast time.

TL;DR: Fuck lines. FML. Wendy's is keeping me sane.

Fuck lines.

Note to self: never travel on a Sunday.

As gambling stories go, I give it a 1.5.

Hopefully the last student-inspired rant of the year.

Final project for the first year students is to create a TV series and write a ten minute script for the show's pilot episode. The top nine scripts out of the 60 students' will be produced by the students in September and October.

Any topic allowed, BUT students are warned repeatedly that guns, gratuitous violence, heavy usage of profanity and drug use not allowed on camera. I teach them that there are ways to imply this sort of thing so as not to offend the school.

One of my geniuses developed a very nebulous idea about four slackers ("Workaholics" style). I wrote on his proposal for the show that it was so lacking in details that I wasn't sure if it was a comedy or a drama. His script showed why he was holding back on details...

It was kind of funny, but loaded with drug use, sexual jokes and swearing. So in between the writing of the first and second drafts, the students have to pitch their ideas to the five profs in the department. This kid does so and stresses the drug use and sex. The other students ate it up. When we took aren minute break, the head of the department spoke to him and reminded him that the school's policy was quite clear on content. I helpfully suggested that he could tone it down, imply drug use and keep the tone and some of the jokes in the script. He said he wouldn't do it.

Because he didn't "want to sell out."

Said with a straight face too.

I also have a student who claims that:

1) TV sucks because it does;t reflect the way people live and talk. He thinks TV should all be shot in a cinema verite style.

2) The only bands worth listening too are the ones who haven't recorded anything.

Not sure which is worse, arrogance or pretension.

Was that a rerun post cause I swear I've heard that story before? (no, not you Shirley)

Giff wrote:Was that a rerun post cause I swear I've heard that story before? (no, not you Shirley)

Good God! You're right.

My humblest apologies. Maybe my kids are right, I do repeat myself.

Pruitt wrote:

Giff wrote:Was that a rerun post cause I swear I've heard that story before? (no, not you Shirley)

Good God! You're right.

My humblest apologies. Maybe my kids are right, I do repeat myself.

On another message board I frequent, I went to search to see if anyone had already answered a question I had. Yeah, they had answered the question I had posted six months before.

f'ckin travel soccer... i love my futbol and love the fact they boy is interested, even love the fact that he shows more ability than i did at that age.. heck he has already scored a goal unlike anything i've ever done at any level on any pitch..

the boy showed an interested and a smidgeon of ability last year, so he went out for travel soccer.. tried out for an academy (who invited him to play, but after we looked at the cost decided to wait) and tried out for the town travel team (well organized club if a bit too political, fucking small town politics).. so 22 kids come out (mind you they were all going into 2nd grade, tried out in may'13, so were still 1st graders) for the U8 team... problem is its 8v8, max of 14.. so rather than cut a bunch, the club decides to make TWO teams.. rather than do the right thing, to set up teams that will build and learn and grow, they set up an A team and a B team. A varsity and a JV basically. of 7 year olds.

asshats.

fast forward one year. i coach the 'b' team (made up of 11 of the sweetest, coolest, best, least likely to listen 8 year olds i know, and that includes my own boy).. try outs start again tonight.. the last two weeks... %$@#%$@#%#$$%@# with the parents, the club board, the other coach, as well as the other team's coach... the 'a' team coach sees our team as a farm team to his.. fuck that. they are separate teams... after much discussion.. he agreed not to poach (although we gave each parent the option to try out for whichever team-most declined as they like the team they are on).. but we'll be 'discussing' who gets what new players.. 8 new players for a potential 6 slots..

i would have set up two equally mixed teams and let them play. what the club did was ensure that 11 kids would be relegated to losing nearly every game as they were the smaller kids (at that age, they are still intimidated.. fuck, at this age sometimes one is intimidated when playing a guy a foot taller adn 30lbs heavier).. despite our bad start, we've won a handful of games and as the season wears on, we've managed to improve and begun to act like a team (even having kids talk to each other during the game on positioning, not just calling for the ball constantly).. even have two kids 'covering' for each other, when then cb goes up, the cmf dropx back to cover the whole... so now.. tonight and next tuesday (work permitting) i'll be at the field with the other coaches, adn the trainers (ugh, another rant!) evaluating and positioning to ensure that the other team doesn't poach our players (they straight up asked if my son would go to the a team, i told them to fuck off) and ensuring we get some level of talent from the 8 trying out...

not too much of a rant.
here it is.

one of our team mom's played d1 a long time ago. she constantly tells her son NOT to listen to the coaches in the game, and has begun taking collections from the parents on the sides when one of our kids scores, so as to motivate the kids...WTF???? she's putting $ bounty's on 8yr olds scoring goals.. fuck the team concept... half the parents feel its ok and a good idea... my god... what a bunch of idiots! feel sorry for those kids...

i've not talked to her yet.. as whenever i think about it i start sputtering....

i'd love to hear your opinions.

Put a bounty on the mom.

What a clusterfeck. Good luck, Flaco. (put her in a box and ship her to Tanzania.)

so the tryouts went better than expected. the other team's coach took over the whole thing and spent each chance he could inquiring as to our players and trying to convince me to move up little flaco. i respectfully decline and asked him to leave our kids alone - we are not interested in winning, but rather into building a team, teaching them how to play as a team.. and over the next few seasons make the slow climb up the flights.
2nd set of tryouts tomorrow evening.

as for the mom... the other coach said something, as we scored in our loss yesterday and no money was collected nor given.
one non rant thing did happen -- we bought the mom's roses and gave them to the players to give to their moms after the game...
several thanked us personally for the gesture, but one of them, who i interact little with (and i interact very little with most of the parents by design).. came up, thanked me for the flowers and proceeded to give me an extremely friendly hug for about 10+seconds, along w peck on the cheek. the other coach did not get such treatment. not trying to read anything into it, but...

You cheat and you are a fucking asshole. Fuck You.

jeebus doc.
what are you ranting at me about for?

Well, the first part was about the cheating you're engaging in by trying to develop rather than win. Can't have that in youth soccer, because where would it lead? The second part was because the mom in question is actually his girlfriend and he's jealous. He gets shorter hugs. But then again, he hasn't delivered the flowers.

elflaco wrote:jeebus doc.
what are you ranting at me about for?

Not sure if you are serious or kidding, but note that the subject on Howard's post is not "Rants 2?"

I will 2nd Howard on his rant

Holy fucking horseballs ebay. Why is it so hard to talk to someone or fucking even e-mail someone.

I don't use ebay. I have never bought anything on ebay. Yet yesterday something was delivered to my house with an ebay item number listed on the mailing slip. And this was the second attempt, as it was first sent to my old home. So someone has shipped an item to my name, to two separate addresses. If it was someone else's name i'd think, hey, someone fucked up and return it. But because it's my name and addresses, I want to know what's up.

It's impossible to email ebay without an account apparently. So i call them. I can barely understand the girl, and I'm trying to explain what the sitch is. Near impossible. She asks for my account e-mail. I don't have an account. She asks for the phone number I used to set up the account. Again, I don't have an account. She tells me I can take it to the post office and refuse the item and they will send it back to the person. Fine, that's good I don't have to pay to ship this back. But that's not the problem. The problem is I want to know why someone is trying so hard to send something to me when I didn't order it and why my address is in the system.

I give her the item number, asking if she can see what account bought it and if the address they have is mine for some reason. She says she can't give me the information about where the item was shipped. I DON'T WANT THAT INFORMATION, AND IN ANY CASE I HAVE THAT INFORMATION BECAUSE THAT INFORMATION IS MINE - I HAVE THE PACKAGE. I just want you to look and see if the person that bought it used my contact info for some strange reason and to notify them both that they used an improper address.

She says it's probably someone that used to live at one of the addresses hadn't updated their contact info. I lived at the old house from 2003 on and I'm the first person to live at the new place. And AGAIN, IT'S MY NAME. It's not Joe Schmoe at my addresses, in which case, like i said, just a mix up. It's MY NAME AND MY ADDRESSES. None of my credit cards have been used, I've not paid for it, so there's really no harm no foul, but I want to know why my name and address is even in the system.

Do you have a paypal account? They may have gotten your info from paypal, since eBay owns paypal.

Also, eBay got hacked recently. The mix up could possibly be due to an overhaul to their system.

You didn't open the box? I'd have to know what was inside.

I do have a paypal (in fact you're one of the four people i've sent money to using it) and my paypal account has been limited for some reason. So I figure the two are related somehow, yeah. But I didn't have any transactions listed that I couldn't account for.

Presumably someone ordered this and is expecting it. I may keep it. Fuck em.

I did open it. It's some nice bose headphones with an armband.

mister d wrote:You didn't open the box? I'd have to know what was inside.

WHAT'S IN THE BOX?!?!?

AB_skin_test wrote:I did open it. It's some nice bose headphones with an armband.

Something similar happened to a(n actual(!)) friend, only it was a bunch of iPhones in the box. Someone hacked some shopping related account somewhere and ordered them, and was presumably hoping to grab the box when it was delivered. The plan was foiled by her being home at the time. Doesn't sound like them same thing with you if your CCs weren't dinged, but still highly suspicious.

AB_skin_test wrote:I did open it. It's some nice bose headphones with an armband.

Hope you like my present!

Pretty sure I have poison ivy again and its b/w my index and middle fingers on my right hand. This is not good placement except for when it comes to people making very, very funny jokes.

The Sybian wrote:

AB_skin_test wrote:I did open it. It's some nice bose headphones with an armband.

Hope you like my present!

The sender lives right next to the Guggenheim and 100 yards from central park.

AB_skin_test wrote:

The Sybian wrote:

AB_skin_test wrote:I did open it. It's some nice bose headphones with an armband.

Hope you like my present!

The sender lives right next to the Guggenheim and 100 yards from central park.

Doc sent you a present!

Our HOA board is run by complete idiots (surprise, I know)...

The board purposely kept secret from the homeowners that they were preparing to sue the builder of the community for repair/replacement costs for some walls that they claimwere not built properly. We found out when we got a letter from a lawyer basically asking for every little thing that was wrong with our house. (And found that it was being kept secret up to that point by a neighbor that is on the board.)

It took a *week* for the HOA president to say something on Facebook about the letters being legit.

Now, in a letter from the builder, we found out that the HOA didn't bother to ask the builder before talking to a lawyer. Oh, and, by law, the builder is supposed to have a chance to fix something before being sued about it.

So our HOA board planned to illegally sue, on our behalf, the builder without asking if the builder would just fix the problem.

I posted something about this to Facebook last night so other friends in the neighborhood would know more about the situation but decided to take it down for the same reason we didn't fill out the paperwork with the lawyer. We're planning on putting out house up on the market next spring and in no way want our name attached to a lawsuit against the builder for crappy construction.

How many residences does your HOA represent?

That's why when I bought my place, I made sure the neighborhood didn't have an HOA. And that's pretty damn hard to do out here anywhere you'd want to live. Ironically I'm thinking it'll probably help my resale value one day that there isn't one.

P.D.X. wrote:How many residences does your HOA represent?

Don't know for sure but somewhere in the 4-500 range.

brian wrote:That's why when I bought my place, I made sure the neighborhood didn't have an HOA. And that's pretty damn hard to do out here anywhere you'd want to live. Ironically I'm thinking it'll probably help my resale value one day that there isn't one.

Yeah, it's pretty difficult here too unless you go to some older areas.

phxgators wrote:Our HOA board is run by complete idiots (surprise, I know)...

The board purposely kept secret from the homeowners that they were preparing to sue the builder of the community for repair/replacement costs for some walls that they claimwere not built properly. We found out when we got a letter from a lawyer basically asking for every little thing that was wrong with our house. (And found that it was being kept secret up to that point by a neighbor that is on the board.)

It took a *week* for the HOA president to say something on Facebook about the letters being legit.

Now, in a letter from the builder, we found out that the HOA didn't bother to ask the builder before talking to a lawyer. Oh, and, by law, the builder is supposed to have a chance to fix something before being sued about it.

So our HOA board planned to illegally sue, on our behalf, the builder without asking if the builder would just fix the problem.

I posted something about this to Facebook last night so other friends in the neighborhood would know more about the situation but decided to take it down for the same reason we didn't fill out the paperwork with the lawyer. We're planning on putting out house up on the market next spring and in no way want our name attached to a lawsuit against the builder for crappy construction.

HOA boards are full of morons. But builders are all dishonest. So I would be very cautious about believing anything the builder says in a letter.

In fact, I'm not sure if it is okay for the builder to send a lawyer to homeowners when he knows the HOA is represented by a lawyer.

Then again, on my other screen is a CLE legal ethics video about use of social media, warning against practicing law where you're not licensed. So maybe I'd better just STFU.