Dallas Cowboys vs Mass Stupidity (and some cheeseheads)

If you don't like football, don't bother reading this. In light of the recent heinous loss to the 4-4 Green Bay Packers, I'm going to rant about the Cowboys game for a little bit.

First off, any play should be reviewable. Period. Today proved that. Felix Jones had, beyond a shadow of a doubt, recovered a fumble and did not lose the ball until after he was both touched and had done a damn barrel roll on the ground. There was no question that he was down. It was simple oversight on the part of the officials, but it just may well have cost us the game. That, and the "illegal hands to the face" that basically amounted to the guy waving. I've seen the Cowboys lose a lot of games, especially when they're ones they should've won, but the refs cost us this one.

I do have one issue with the Cowboys right now, though. Why the hell is Roy Williams even still in there? What does the dropped ball to yards gained ratio need to be before they give him the boot? And did Patrick Crayton not give ample evidence that he should be starting in every single game since they took him off? For fuck's sake, trade Roy Williams for some offensive line talent while other teams might still think he's worth something.

Speaking of the offensive line...here's a hint to Wade Phillips. You're not going to make three scores in less than a minute. When you have so many injuries that you officially have your last backup offensive lineman on the field, why in the hell would you risk the talent, too? Do you really think that the very last guy that you put in can protect Romo? Especially when he's already been sacked five times? Pull the damn first string when you can't possibly win. How hard is that to understand? I'm seriously starting to doubt Phillips's competence.

Not that he did anything that trumped Green Bay's coach attempting to throw a third challenge flag. Or how about the fact that the officials actually went for it at first? Or how about the fact that, regardless of any of that, the ball had been snapped before they blew the whistle, killing the chance for the challenge that didn't exist? What a mess.

Legacy...

I didn't really have a reason to post this, but I felt the need anyway.

Cymbalta and Being Anti-Social

So I was looking at my stats for this place, and I noticed that I'm getting a few hits for "Cymbalta antisocial". I figured, hey, if people click, I may as well tell them what I know since I am on Cymbalta, and am anti-social.

Does it help me be more social?

No. I still don't care for people in general, and still don't want to deal with them. I've found no change except that, since it does raise my give-a-shit threshold, I can handle being around stupidity a bit more than without and not get angry. But does Cymbalta make me want to actually get out and do things with people? Not at all. I was unaware that it was supposed to, though.

I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Cymbalta did make me able to handle working at Time Warner for as long as I did. Handling violent stupidity 70 times a day is too much for me, though, even when medicated.

I know there's also a lot of hubbub about Cymbalta and withdrawal symptoms. After halving my dosage (see this post), I may have had some headaches, but nothing too out of the ordinary.

I am far less sleepy than I was on my previous dosage. I think the sleep apnea has calmed down some as well because I wake up with sandpaper-tongue a lot less than I did before. I should probably see what the affect is on my blood pressure, too, as I also take meds for hypertension.

Anyway, that's my experiences with Cymbalta so far. For comparison purposes, Lexapro had about the same effects until it stopped working, and Pristiq made me mildly homicidal, and I'm of the firm opinion (based on little to no data) that people probably react to all medicines in a similar manner. For example, if you do well with Cymbalta, you might do well with Lexapro too, since I did well with both.

If you have any questions about my experiences or anything at all to add, definitely leave some comments, I'd love to hear from you.

November 16th and writing

I'll be 29. Poor people should be able to skip birthdays, IMO.

If it wasn't for my dad and Janna, it would be a seriously depressing day (money and something). At 29, shouldn't I be buying my own best present? Maybe 30 is the magic number?

Bah.

I've been trying to keep up with what I need to do for Textbroker to pay the bills, but it just isn't happening. My mind runs dry. It's just hard to write 400 words for $6 all day, even though it's really fairly good pay. Hopefully I'll come around and be interested enough to do it again. Or my SEOing will take off.

I neglected it (on purpose) for about three months so that the domains would age, which is an important part of ranking in the search engines, and when I came back I succeeded in making my rankings DROP by cleaning up my home page. WTF.

Oh, almost lost the dog, or so we thought. She suddenly became unable to control her bladder. Seems to have been an infection, though, as with some antibiotics she's actually better. Only another $150 or so borrowed. Woot. If it keeps her around for another year or so (optimism+old dog+cancer=stupid, I know), it's worth it. I sort of blame myself. I've been home far more than anyone else (except maybe Jeanne)...I should be taking the old dog out more. I will now!

Windows 7

Obtained a RTM version of Windows 7 and, I have to admit, it's pretty great. If you like Vista, you'll like the fact that all the spiff is still there but it's a lot faster. Even if you think Vista is quick, like I did, Win 7 is faster, trust me. If you like Win XP you'll like that it's faster and less bulkier than Vista, and on modern machines, just as quick as XP.

Also, finally went 64 bit and have had no regrets. Zero compatibility issues.

Install was the smoothest and fastest of any Windows install I have ever done, and I've done each one many, many times since Win 95.

Sooo...that's my review of Windows 7, for anyone who cares.

Sick, then sick, then sick AGAIN...

Anyone else getting sick repeatedly, or am I the only walking snot factory? Seriously, I've gotten sick three times in a row...like, light fever with a cold. It is funny, though, that walking through a grocery store or drug store, if I cough a bit (there's a little in my chest so the cough sounds much worse than it actually is) people clear out like crazy. Might even hear a mumbling "swine flu!" in there.

Allstate, writing, and Cymbalta

Yes, seriously, all of that. I figure if I make that the title, I won't forget anything.

Allstate didn't mess up the claim, everything is fine with Janna's car. It all went amazingly smoothly, in fact. After not calling me back when they called Janna and asked her to have me call them for whatever reason, they simply fixed the car and all is fine. It was even done mostly right, though the concept of replacing one tire still irks the crap out of me.

I've been writing for a website called Textbroker with the goal being $1200 a month before taxes. They pay $1.40 per word, and there are 300-500 word articles about things that I can basically babble through and still make a great article, according to them and the clients. Biggest problem is focusing, especially when I keep getting headaches and random sleep spells.

The theory is that if I can bang out a 400 word article in 15 minutes, that could be up to $22/hr for as many hours as I want to work. The truth is not as efficient. In fact, I'm behind right now and should probably be working...doot-da-doo...

I did my "Better than" search on Google for "better than textbroker" and found ECopywriters, which does offer more money per word but seems ridiculously slow to accept articles, and you have to work your way up to (what I'm assuming) is better than the crappy law related articles they have for the beginners. Well, crappy for me, maybe others like them. They make me stabby.

Which may be because I'm trying to back off on Cymbalta, one of the five prescription meds I take. Cymbalta is for depression, and is a SRI, which in very, very basic terms means it limits how much you think. Seriously. One of its side effects, however, is sleepiness. One of the withdrawal symptoms is headaches. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with that.

For anyone interested, since Cymbalta is cumulative in the system I decided to take my dose every other day instead of every day to see if I could cut down on the withdrawal symptoms while still using the bottle of expensive ass meds I have. It seems to be working. Tomorrow I go to the doc to get a scrip for the lower dosage to use every day...I guess I'll see then if that's easier or harder on the body than skipping every other dosage. I do know I'm feeling more energetic, but also more aggressive. Good thing I don't have to leave the house.

Related linkage:
http://www.textbroker.com
http://www.ecopywriters.com