Took my mom to see Star Trek for Mother's Day. She and I watched all 6 original films together so I figured I shouldn't break that tradition now. I actually didn't hate it. In fact liked most of it though there was one part I kinda wanted to walk out on. Not surprisingly Bones was my favorite character (not counting the actual Spock).

EDIT: Comments may contain spoilers

State Of Mind: chipper

Bill Murray is everything that is right about the world.

"Gay Gaiken" stopped being funny.

State Of Mind: sad

I got a call about ten minutes ago from a Statecomm Group. Of course it was a recording. This recording said in a very casual voice, so casual I almost thought it was a real person, that they were aware that I had over 6000 dollars in credit card debt and I was paying over 25% interest. The funny thing is that neither Aaron or I even have a credit card. So, when prompted I pressed 1to speak to an agent. Rather quickly a foreign sounding woman answered the phone. To the best of my recollection, here is that conversation.

Operator: Would you like to speak to an agent?

Frank: No, I would like to be taken off of your calling list.

O: Why!?!? We just want to help you reduce your debt.

F: No one in this household owns a credit card, let alone has 6,000 dollars in credit card debt.

O: But we can help you with your debt.

F: Um...

O: Do you have any debt?

F: (angry) No, I don't!

O: Well good for you. (hangs up)

State Of Mind: annoyed and amused

Everything has been pretty good on the kidney front. The only snag I have run into is crazy weight gain. Ever since I was let off my renal diet I have been gaining weight like a crazy person. To combat this I have recently sworn off of soda, red meat, and greasy food and plan to cut down on my "treats". My mother is giving me her treadmill and Aaron and I are going to buy our own set of pins for the apartment's weight room since somebody keeps stealing the ones that are supposed to be there. I really got scared when I was no longer able to fit into pants that fit like a tent two months ago. My self image aside, I have to lose this weight or risk developing diabetes. The medication I am on make me much more likely to get it than the average Joe.

Somewhere around two months ago I embarked on a new Dungeons and Dragons venture. I put together a new group to try out, not only 4th Edition, but several campaign ideas I have had kicking around for quite some time. So far both have been exceeding my expectations! 4th Edition is very different. The game would probably run a lot smoother if none of us had played D&D before. Concepts from previous editions occasionally trip us up. The fact that we have some "new" players has turned out to be a boon. Though they used to play D&D back before there was more than one edition to keep track of,  they are still green enough to interpret these new rules exactly as they are written without being clouded by "how it used to be". It feels so good to look forward to D&D again.

State Of Mind: happy

Last night I had a sex dream about Spider-Man. What the fuck is wrong with me?

State Of Mind: weird

I realized I haven't written anything in some time about my health and well being. Fortunately in this case no news is in fact good news. Everything has been going rather well. I haven't really written anything because there was nothing worth writing about... and I got World of Warcraft.

State Of Mind: chipper

I was creating a new character on World of Warcraft to play with Amy when only the two of us are online. As a lark I tried the name Gygax. I got it.

State Of Mind: cheerful

I found out yesterday that Gary Gygax, creator of Dungeons and Dragons, passed away. He was 69. I have been playing for over 15 years. That is more than half my life. Thank you Mr. Gygax I have had a blast and I plan to continue to do so.

State Of Mind: bummed

In the not too distant future, when 4th Edition finally drops, I will be running a game wherein all of the player characters are playing monsters. Though I had this idea long before I started playing World of Warcraft playing the Horde has only made my desire to run it stronger. To start the game I plan to run the classic module The Keep on the Borderlands... backwards. The keep still hires a group of adventurers to clean out the caves. Only the adventurers are NPCs. The player characters will be the survivors of the attack. I am not certain if I will have a confrontation with the adventurers in the first adventure or save them for later. In any event though the players will get the opportunity to storm The Keep on the Borderlands and slaughter the ones who ordered their families and tribes wiped out. What I think would be extra fun is if the players opted not to kill the innocent non-combatants.

State Of Mind: cheerful

I caught the end of Star Wars Episdoe III again last night. It doesn't matter how many times I watch it I just cannot get over the fact that Obi-Wan Kenobi would leave his best friend laying on a lava beach with no arms and legs to burn to death. If he loved him as he proclaimed he would have put a lightsaber through his head. That is a really terrible way to die. I know that Obi-Wan couldn't have killed Anakin but George really could have come up with a better way to end that fight. Having Obi-Wan knock him off a cliff or some other ambiguous death would have been nice. I just don't see Obi-Wan being so heartless... Then again I can't justify Darth Vader being such a whiney little douche-fag either... You really dropped the ball on this one Lucas. Don't even get me started on the whole Yoda/Obi-Wan thing. I like Qui-Gon but you said Yoda trained Obi-Wan damn it! You can't justify it, you just can't. Oops I got started. There are so many things about those movies that just piss me off. Conversely, barring special edition nonsense, I have nothing bad to say about the original trilogy regardless of how cheesy they might be.

State Of Mind: annoyed

How was I not aware of this?

I am out of the hospital. I will spare you the less than fun details of my adventure. Suffice it to say I went in feeling quite healthy and it did not remain that way for long. The treatment I underwent was quite taxing on my body's systems. I am feeling better now but still much worse than when I went in. I should know pretty soon if it was all worth it.

This morning I was told I was being removed from the clinical study. The reason being that the study drug was not performing for me in the way they had hoped. I am to be placed on a more traditional regiment. Now I know I can't stay on a drug that isn't performing properly but the promise of the study drug was pretty great.

The situation gets a bit more dire however. I was just informed by the hospital that the final results of the biopsy came back and I am experiencing a much worse case of rejection than initially though. Though it is still not the end of the line by any means, it does require much more serious measures to correct. I have been told to report to the hospital for inpatient treatment. I have no idea how long I will be there. Hopefully I will be out by the weekend. There goes my Tuesday with Amy.

State Of Mind: depressed

Yesterday I had a doctors appointment at The U of M. As far as I knew it was another post-transplant clinic appointment. My creatinine count was rather high again so they instructed me to get my blood redrawn Thursday. If it hadn't gone down by a significant amount they would have to do a biopsy. At least that is how the nurse made it sound on the phone. As most of you may have noticed the roads yesterday morning were hell. The express way was terrifying and took over an hour to navigate. However, things got really bad when we made it into Ann Arbor. It took almost as long to get the 5 or so miles to the hospital than it did to get the rest of the way.

So we finally arrive at the hospital to discover that the biopsy was a go as of several days ago and my appointment for that was at 8 o'clock. It was 8:45. I finally got down to the biopsy room around 9. They took me back right away but didn't get around to the actual procedure until after 11. They were finished by twelve and I was informed that I had to stay lying in bed for four hours under supervision. So now my 1 hour appointment has become six. My grandmother was forced to call off her clowning gig for the evening so she could stay with me. She didn't seem to upset by it but I was not pleased to cost her work but she didn't think she'd have time to get home and get ready in time. Turns out it was a good idea because 4 o'clock was not when I was allowed to leave as implied, I had to wait around for the doctor to come back with the results of biopsy and blood work. This happened around 5:30.

The good news is the procedure didn't cause any problems. The bad news is I am in the early stages of transplant rejection. Now, rejection isn't the end of the line this day and age. They caught it about as early as they possibly could. Furthermore, the doctor informed me that over 1 in 10 transplant patients suffer at least some form of rejection so this is a relatively common occurrence. The treatment however, was not my favorite idea. In case anyone is wondering, the way to fix some minor rejection... TAKE MORE STEROIDS! For the next three days I get to take a dosage of steroids FIVE TIMES larger than the one I started with after surgery. Not my favorite news but I suppose it is better than losing the kidney. In case you are wondering why I am so upset by this turn of events, besides the obvious reasons of course, take a moment to read about prednisone.

So the day hasn't been my favorite one so far. Over 10 hours later we get out of U of M. When we get on the roads we both take a moment to thank The Good Lord that the roads are clear. This should be smooth sailing from here on out. And it was... until we got hit by an 18 wheeler. I shit you not. We were sideswiped by a semi. A large truck was merging from 275 to I96 and didn't happen to notice that we were very much in the way. The trailer collided with my grandmother's minivan and there was no where for us to go. Miraculously the cars next to us were able to pull over to their lefts and we were able to get over. Now, either the truck didn't notice he had hit us or he just didn't give a fuck because he just kept right on going despite the fact that my grandmother followed him for over a mile laying on her horn. The truck unfortunately got away but not before we got the "How Am I Driving" number off the back. I tried to get the plate or the vehicle number but the thing was too dirty to make any of that out. So instead of going home like I so desperately wanted to do we went to the police station to file an accident report. At this point I am no longer concerned about getting home. I am just happy to be alive.

The bright side is that, despite the fact that is sounded like the truck tore the side off the minivan, there was little to no damage. Unfortunately her passenger side mirror was snapped off and that isn't likely to be cheap. Now that it was over and we were safe we laughed more than a little on the way back to my apartment. The rest of the evening went pretty well. Aaron made me dinner and we played WoW until 2:30 in the morning.


Note: I am sorry if there are spelling and grammar errors. I normally proofread but this is long and I think I am going back to bed now that I have ingested my breakfast and mountain of pills.

State Of Mind: exhausted

I watched the Bucket List with my mother and Aaron tonight. I laughed a lot and even cried a little. I make no apologies. It was a fantastic film. I enjoyed the hell out of it.

I wasn't going to post anything about the death of Heath Ledger but then again this really isn't about him is it...

State Of Mind: pissed off