After nearly two weeks of eye trauma spoiling my plans, I decided to head over the mountains to hang out with friends and forget about the day-to-day grind for a while.

The drive over was mostly a good one.

I still can't wrap my head around three things...

1. Drivers who have no plans to drive the speed limit, and are happy to be fucking over dozens of other cars by inviting other drivers to dangerously try and pass them (seriously... if you or your car can't go the speed limit, maybe it's time to stop driving).
2. Aggressive drivers who don't care about anybody's safety by driving like complete assholes... even when everybody else on the road is driving the speed limit or higher. One of the people who could end up dead is you, dumbass.
3. Why does the State always have multiple projects fucking things up on the same roadway at the same time? When your two-hour-and-fifteen-minute trip is 40 minutes longer than usual, it's a problem. In other countries (probably in other states) they focus effort on knocking out one project at a time so that they don't have to have many, many stops along a single route. But my state? No.

All that being said... it could have been worse. I could have been going East instead of West. The traffic heading East was insane. Just a massive line for miles and miles. If I were in the middle of that, I'd have to ask myself if the weekender trip was even worth it.

Maybe it's because I am a homebody at heart now-a-days... but for me the answer would be "no."

It was a rough night. According to my Apple Watch I only got 4-1/2 hours of sleep. I think I kept touching my eye or rolling on it which woke me up.

And when my alarm went off this morning, I was in quite a lot of pain. It feels like I've been punched in the eye. Except I wasn't. My doctor had to press on my eye hard enough to squeeze the liquid out from under my first surgery so he could try and better contain the tear on my retina so it doesn't spread and detach. A half hour of somebody poking your eye out don't feel great once the anesthesia they shoot into it wears off.

My cats must have sensed something was wrong, because I found them next to me whenever I woke up...

   
BUT THAT WASN'T ALL THE PAIN I GOT THIS MORNING!

This was waiting for me in my email in-box...

This is “health insurance” in America.

One health problem has me hitting 75% of my full-price, high deductible... and this doesn’t even include my much more intensive second surgery yet.

The cost for all this will be thousands upon thousands of dollars. It will easily wipe out my health savings account and likely wipe out my regular savings as well. And this is for one eye. Can you imagine if it were something far worse?

I’m just thankful that I have savings to draw from. And, believe it or not, I consider myself lucky to have insurance... because I might not have even been able to afford to go to the doctor in the first place if I didn’t.

Americans are paying thousands upon thousands of dollars for insurance which results in thousands upon thousands of dollars in medical bills.

This is fucking insanity.

Yet politicians who were bought by the insurance lobby tell us we have the best health care in the world.

Why aren’t Americans sick of this fucking scam yet?

Last week I had me some laser eye surgery in order to try and halt a tear in my retina before it ripped through completely. It went fine, my surgeon was great, and I walked away thinking that I'd be okay for a while... until the next time.

Which, as it turns out, was today.

And this time was SO much more painful.

Especially once the anesthesia wore off and I can feel where he jabbed me with the syringe multiple times... and where he had to push on my eye in order to force liquid out from under my previous surgery so he could super-laser it again... and where the laser burned my retina.

I have a high pain tolerance because I'm an alpha male like that, but still had to tap out at least five times because I needed a minute. Not just from having my eyeball pushed into my skull and the burning of my retina, but from the light so my surgeon could see inside... not to mention the laser itself.

But anyway...

THE GOOD: I'm alive, my vision will mostly return, and my surgeon was happy with how things went.

THE BAD: It will take weeks to months for my vision to mostly return... that second tear they found had to be dealt with which prolonged everything... and ... this likely isn't over. It's only a matter of time before I have to go again.

CONTRAST ENHANCE...

In other good news, my third doctor was just as awesome as my previous two. And he appreciated that humor is my coping mechanism. On top of the laser was protective eyewear, and I asked him to give me a pair because I didn't want the laser to accidentally blind me...

This might have been too much for him. But, hey, I was getting crap injected in my eye and having lasers burning my retina. I could have started screaming!

After I was set free I had to take a nap in my car in the parking lot after, but ended up throwing on two pair of sunglasses so I could drive home.

Along the way I had a disastrous visit to McDonald's which I'll talk about tomorrow.

And once I got home, I passed out on the couch.

And here I am. Feeling like I got punched in the eye and there's blurry spots everywhere.

Overall this was not a good time. Do not recommend. Unless you're going to lose an eye... then you probably want to put on your big boy pants and get it done.

Today was the follow-up to the surgery of my surgery. It went fine. Some fluid build-up under my surgical scar, but it would likely resolve itself. I drove home thinking that I was good for a few more years at least.

Turns out I was off by a few years.

After I got home from work I received a phone call from my surgeon saying that he consulted with another surgeon who spotted another tear on my retina. It was smaller, but should be taken care of. He then told me that the second surgeon also wanted to reinforce the surgery I just had given this new information.

I asked when I could be scheduled.

He said "Can you be here at 11 tomorrow?

When I was a kid, one of my favorite toys was my View-Master.

In an age before videotapes, DVDs, on-demand programming, and personal computers, it was a way to watch my favorite shows and movies... and travel the world... when such activities were impossible for me.

Last night while I was working I turned on YouTube and ran across this cool video on View-Master which is worth sharing. Especially if you're familiar with the device...

Pretty amazing, right? It opened a new world for an entire generation.

   
• Terrific! You knew it was coming... but it was finally announced that a series starring Mr. Terrific is indeed happening. Which is fantastic given how memorable he was in Superman...

Cannot wait to see it!

   
• Congrats! And so Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got married in a massive ceremony at Madison Square Garden. It took quite a lot of people by surprise because they had over 1000 guests. It didn't take me by surprise, because I remember what she said to Graham Norton...

People are saying that they should have had their nuptials at Trump's Freedom 250 America's State Fair because they'd have loads of privacy given that this event has practically nobody showing up. Given how this joyous event has inexplicably pissed off a lot of people, I hope that Tay and Trav are very happy and stay together for the rest of their lives.

   
• Yes, Ma'am! "Babe, take off my underwear..."

Bwah ha ha haaaaaaa!

   
• Shadoe! Are you a Gen-Xer like me? Do you remember Shadoe Stevens? Then here's a TikTok for you, which is a darn cool distraction from the horrors of the day...
UPDATE: Why is TikTok such garbage water? Here's a direct link if the video below is wrong.

I love stuff like this.

   
• NEWSFLASH: Vatican excommunicates conservative SSPX followers — In all honesty, I'm surprised that it took this long. Vatican II ended the year before I was born. The simple truth is that the Catholic Church had to do something to modernize or else they would lose future generations of Catholics who felt that the Holy Church was too far removed from reality for them to stay parishioners. What is even more surprising is that there are still people in this day and age who feel compelled to cling to old doctrine... despite the fact that it was adopted by the Papacy, which cannot in any way be ignored WITHOUT excommunication. Anybody who thinks otherwise really, really doesn't understand the Catholic Church and the powers of the Supreme Pontiff.

   
• Time Damage, Eye Damage! ZOMG! They shut CERN's Large Hadron Collider down on June 29th. DO YOU KNOW WHAT DAY MY RETINA GOT TORN? Okay... it was June 24th... but I had the surgery on June 29th. COINCIDENCE?? I THINK NOT! Clearly the time-altering shenanigans of these "scientists" are responsible for my misfortune. Who can I sue?

   
• Baggage! Domestic carry-on size is 22 x 14 x 9 inches. If your carry-on is 18.9 x 13.0 x 8.3, YOU FAIL because you're not providing maximum space allowed. If your carry-on is 20.5 × 15.5 × 10, YOU FAIL because you're exceeding the maximum dimension in two directions while undersized in another (WTF, Nobl?). It's absolute insanity that luggage companies will call an oversized bag "carry-on" when it's not, and you are taking a huge risk every time you book a flight. Just make your damn domestic carry-on luggage 22 x 14 x 9 and be done with it.

   
Now I'm going back to whining about my eye.

Happy Independence Day, my fellow Americans!

This is an awful day for pet owners, because the fireworks will be traumatizing cats, dogs, and the rest all night. I think that they've been banned here this year because they don't want another fire raging in the heat we've got going on, but that never stops everybody. There's always people who will ignore it all and fire them off anyway...

When I bought my home, the previous tenant left a Speed Queen industrial washer and dryer. I was going to replace them with something cool and modern, but a friend told me I would be a fool to throw out tough, reliable, industrial models for new tech garbage where the electronics are always failing and they break at the drop of a hat. And boy am I glad that I heeded my friend's advice. Those old models just keep going no matter what I throw at them. Their capacity is huge. Clothes get really clean (the mounds of cat hair are no problem). And they are truly built like a tank.

Because I can wash such huge loads of clothing at a time, I often go weeks without washing to save money. And that was the case when I finally washed this past week. I had baskets of clothes sitting out to take up to my room.

Enter my cats.

They were very interested in the piles of clean clothes.

Jake decided he wanted to lay on top of one of the baskets, but it was piled too high. So I sat and watched him grab a single sock... walk across the room... drop it... then go back to get another sock. This time he took a few steps, decided it would be too much work to empty the basket, dropped the sock, then fell asleep on the couch.

Jenny, on the other hand, sniffed around all the baskets for a while, then went upstairs to sleep on my bed.

She could have taken some laundry with her, but did not.

Happy Birthday tomorrow, America!

Just a reminder that here in the Land of the Free™©® you can be straight-up executed by the government for holding a mobile phone and trying to assist your fellow Americans when they require aid from being shoved to the ground by those who are supposed to be protecting us. Then the president will accuse you of being a domestic terrorist because you had a firearm on your person that you were legally allowed to carry (as guaranteed by the Second Amendment), even though it remained holstered. Then the government will tell lies about you having drawn your weapon and announce that you deserved to die even though video footage exists, and the only thing you were holding was your phone. Then the government agents responsible for murdering you in broad daylight will get put on "administrative leave." But, woo-hoo, fireworks or what the fuck ever.

Instead of attending some tacky, unattended, bloated, partisan, for-profit event that's a drain on American taxpayers for America's 250th, I'll be celebrating American heroes who embody the best ideals of what our country could be. Like a 37-year-old intensive care nurse working to help our veterans who put himself between a woman who had been attacked... and the federal agents who shoved her to the ground. At which time he was pepper-sprayed then executed by the government as he tried to help her. Then he was vilified and branded a terrorist by the head of the government, despite the fact that he had done nothing illegal or wrong.

He was just an American trying to enjoy the freedoms which were at the heart of the entire reason this country was built in the first place. And he was a helper...

This country was better with you in it, Alex Pretti.

My eye is still feeling a bit bruised after surgery, but that's not the problem.

The problem is that it's like I've been punched in the eye. Not from pain, but from swelling on my lower lid... even though there's no swelling. Instead it's more like a haze along the bottom (because the tear was at the top and things get reversed in your eye... our brains switch things right-side up).

Eventually my brain will be able to eliminate the haze at the bottom from the top and the chunk floating at the top from the bottom. At least I hope so.

It's tiring having to concentrate all day long to see... though, oddly enough, it's difficult to actually fall asleep. And so I've been falling asleep to my Disney movie collection each night. Last night was The Rescuers and tonight I'm watching The Emperor's New Groove...

This is a criminally underrated movie.

Especially since it features Eartha Kitt's delightful villain, Yzma, who steals the film at every turn...

The rumor is that the big coaster in "Villains Land" has been re-imagined to be an Yzma coaster. I sure hope that's true, because I can't imagine a better source material for an attraction.

Why is good American cheese such an expensive commodity?

I can get Colby-Jack, Swiss, Provolone, Havarti, Muenster, Pepper Jack, and a variety of Cheddars (along with many others) at ridiculously low prices for slices. I got an 8oz. Package on sale for $1.79 not too long ago, and don't think I've ever paid over $2.50. But if I want American Cheese of an equal quality (none of the individually-wrapped crap that's not real cheese and tastes like plastic), it's $4.50 to get 8oz. of Kraft American Deluxe... or even $6.00 to get 8oz. of more premium brands...

And I don't get it.

American cheese that's real cheese is just a blend of cheeses mixed with sodium citrate to make it creamier. So why is it double the price? It seems absurd. But American cheese is the best-melting stuff you can buy for a burger, so I end up paying the price because nothing else quite compares.

And the Big Cheese Cartel knows that, so they are able to charge big money knowing people will pay it.

I should probably switch to Cheddar or Colby-Jack to save my hard-earned cash.