Stupid Guardian, stupid stupid health insurance. Two more claims got screwed up, but at least they're already on their way to being fixed (or at least, "submitted for adjustment", which is better than nothing?) One claim was denied because whoever was beating their head against the keyboard when my name came up decided that I wasn't covered for ( Read more... )

Hooray for weekends! A nice small gathering with plenty of board games (and To Court the King, a dice game I really enjoyed), groaning in frustration when the Giants threw away a 4-1 lead in the bottom of the 9th to eventually lose to the Diamondbacks 4-5 in the bottom of the 12th, and then let's round out the weekend with a night of sushi and ( Read more... )

The police in my area use decoys to get people to obey stop signs! I was on my long walk, and at two different four-way stops I saw the same thing - a police car parked on the side of the road, in the shade, with a dummy dressed as an officer posed in the front seat as if it were watching traffic! It was completely convincing until I got within ( Read more... )

(Stream of swearing omitted, but just imagine it's there...) So I got another letter from our health insurance provider today. I just found out that Spam's doctor is now out-of-network. Actually, he's been out-of-network since his office canceled their contract with our insurance just two weeks after we confirmed he was in-network. And they ( Read more... )

Okay, this is just ridiculous. If you want to buy tickets to a Giants game, there's a $3-per-ticket "convenience" fee for buying them online, a $2-per-ticket surcharge for buying them at the box office the same day as the game, and a $0.50-per-ticket fee for purchasing them at the box office before the game. How are you supposed to buy the ( Read more... )

Baseball season has officially begun! Okay, I know we're like three weeks in, but it was my first game of the season, therefore, the official start. It was a good game, Giants beat the Diamondbacks 2-0. If you're at all interested in baseball and are mathematically inclined you may find the site Fan Graphs interesting. It shows play-by-play ( Read more... )

Apparently the brain cells that get a work-out reading the Internal Revenue Code and doing taxes are the same ones required for the NYT crossword puzzles.  I hadn't done any puzzles in months, basically over tax season, but I printed out a couple to do between classes to get back in practice, because I'd get good enough to do a Sunday puzzle... ( Read more... )

Random cool fact:  Tennis shoes occasionally fall off ships in the ocean.  Wait, that's not the cool part, that's just litter.  The cool part is that when they eventually wash up on beaches around the world, certain beaches only get left shoes and other beaches only get right shoes.  Why is that ( Read more... )

My neighborhood is feeling kind of surreal lately.  Yesterday, I walked out of the office to see a superhero staring at me through my second-story window.  The neighbor's kid had dressed up in a mask and cape and was standing on their roof, striking heroic poses, cape blowing fantastically in the wind.  Today, I'm being haunted.  For the last hour ( Read more... )

Ladies, would you all like a huge self-esteem boost today?  Go to the store, start loading ham in your shopping cart, and just wait for the flirting to begin.  The men will come to you like flies to honey, seriously.  The conversion rate seems to be approximately one man per every eight pounds of ham in your cart, and the phone numbers start at ( Read more... )