» Cringe!

The boss
Came up to my desk one morning to talk to me but the conversation was strained with him
spending time making occasional glances at my screen.

It was only when he left that I realised that I had a number of analysis spreadsheets open
that I had minimised and due to having many applications open, the taskbar had truncated
their names to things like "INTERESTING ANAL" and "COMPLETE ANAL".

*wince*
(Sun 30th Nov 2008, 16:11, More)

» Mobile phone disasters

How does one pay and go?
Summer of 97 if I remember correctly. I'd avoided buying a mobile simply because I didn't want to enter into a contract for something I'd hardly use.

Through the door, popped a magazine, the back page of which was adorned with a full page advertisement for One2One's new "up 2 you" service launching soon, a pre-paid mobile phone for about 100 squids.

The (concept) picture was of a small mobile phone of the day, but instead of a screen, there was a slot to insert coins.

I thought this was a superb idea with just one small flaw so was straight on the phone to them to ask.....

"Where the money went after I inserted it and how they got it out again"
(Fri 31st Jul 2009, 2:43, More)

» Blood

Needles
Not strictly on topic, but recently I've been diagnosed with a condition which requires me to receive regular intramuscular injections and me, being me , decided that I would take it upon myself to administer them.

I arrived at the clinic for the tutorial,
I was met by a nice female doctor who offered to "show me the ropes".

I was shown how to prepare for the injection and fill the needle with the drug.

I was then told that the best place on my body to start learning with is a muscle called the "Vastus lateralis" which is in the thigh.

After sterilising the area, we arrived at the point were I was holding the needle over my leg with one hand, and gripping it (to expose more muscle) with the other.

It was at this stage where the appeal of the procedure was suddenly lost on me as I realised I was at the point where I had to jab myself with a bloody great needle (21g if you are interested) which was an inch long (to penetrate the muscle tissue) and rather thick looking. There was no going back.

"Hold it like a dart" she said, "throw it into your thigh like you would throw a dart, it's all in the wrist".

I must confess I was never good at darts but nonetheless I was under medical supervision and she would be there to take the blame if anything went wrong, right?

Nervously, I threw the needle into my leg, expecting it to be stupidly painful, what I /actually/ felt was far worse.

As it hit the skin , piercing the epidermal and dermal layers and then the (subcutanoeus) fat layer, I must confess I couldn't feel a thing, it was like a knife through butter, this surprised me somewhat.

When it hit the muscle layer however, my astonishment turned to distress, there is nothing quite like the feel of a silicon coated needle inside your muscle tissue, muscles are made of lots of "fibres" and the needle parts them where it can.
I can only describe it as a "weakening" of the muscle tissue, it goes from a solid piece of muscle you can tense and control, to a lump of pathetic jelly.
Now the needle was all the way in (a whole inch of it), the thought of accidentally knocking it and having it move was making me quite sick.

I looked up at the doc and waited for a prompt as to what to do next, she told me that now I was "in", I would have to "aspirate" (I believe the technical term is) which is to pull back on the plunger to look for blood, if I had the end of the needle inside a blood vessel (and there were many in my leg) I couldn't continue and would have to pull out (the drugs are not designed to go direct into the blood like that).

I did this and was surprised to find... nothing.. nothing at all... I was actually pulling back what seemed to be a vacuum, I could feel the resistance on the plunger as it wanted to be pulled back in, there was a vacuum inside my muscle!!

After confirming there was no blood, I continued to press the plunger in, the feeling of jelly became worse as the solution pushed apart my muscle fibres further, there was no going back.

Finally, I'd finished. I removed the needle which felt odder coming out than it did on the way in. Instantly I saw the clear drug leaking out of the hole I just made, trying to attain its freedom, followed closely by blood from the vessels I'd punctured on the way down.

For this I was simply told to apply pressure and it would stop by itself.

The whole experience gave me a funny sensation in the leg all day and still does to this day.




Length? 1 inch and rather deep.
(Thu 7th Aug 2008, 23:24, More)

» Narrow Escapes

So I was driving along...
When I was a young'un, was taking driving lessons with a middle aged chap with a stern outlook on the whole process, made me go through various procedural rigmarole like clockwork for fear lack of attention to detail would make me fail the test.

Anyway, one day we were driving down a particular high street with an odd design, the street was partitioned into two lanes (one for each direction) separated with a small metal barrier and littered with parked cars occupying bays further reducing the width (and visibility of the pavement)

So we were driving along, I think I was doing around 25/30mph, and in the road ahead I spotted a ball starting to peep out from behind one of the parked cars.

I instantly hit the brake and the instructor was wrenched forward knocking his head against the windscreen (he wasn't wearing his belt, how silly), the ball was of course followed microseconds later by the obligatory small child running after it who now stood about a millimeter from my bumper and stared up at me in bewilderment.

I often wonder what would have happened if there had been less concentration involved and I would have hit the boy, however I firmly believe the narrow escape was his, and not mine.
(Wed 25th Aug 2010, 23:45, More)

» Terrible food

Ulcer Cakes
When I was about 8 I remember coming up with this fantastic idea, based on the following principles:

a. I had a mouth ulcer. It hurt lots.

b. My mother had told me that bicarbonate of soda "heals" mouth ulcers.

c. Bicarbonate of Soda tastes rank.

d. Cakes taste nice.

e. Cakes baked with Bicarbonate of Soda would both taste nice and heal mouth ulcers.

So I set about my task to bake my famous "Ulcer Cakes" which would be a revolution in Kids oral health, I would make fairy cakes and replace the baking powder for bicarbonate of soda, since they were both white powders to me they would be interchangable!

For added strength, I would double the amount of power used.


An hour later my mother removes the cakes from the oven and I anxiously try my miracle cure.

I take a cake, put it in my mouth and chew on it for a while, before realising that rather than tasting sweet as I had expected it to,
it did in fact taste like my mouth had come to the end of a rather long and intense vomiting session and was still covered in bile.

Didn't stop me from insisting that everybody else in the house try one,
I can still picture the grimaces on their faces to this day...
(Wed 23rd May 2007, 1:50, More)