The Eleventh Day Of Duckmas 2011

Did you know it takes 49 minutes to wrap a rubber duckie?  I know that sounds unlikely, but that's how long it took to get the purple devil duckie ready for this picture.  Fortunately, wrapping easy, simple shapes, like boxes, tesseracts and klein bottles takes much less time than wrapping a duckie, so I should be able to get everything ready for Christmas.

I don't know about you, my readers, but I do have a little tradition when it comes to gift-wrapping.  I do it late on Christmas Eve, mug of hot chocolate (complete with immersed candycane) at the ready, whilst listening to WGN-AM out of Chicago.  In the past, the overnight team has a high school choir in the studio with them, so I wrap while they sing and banter.  It just occurred to me, however, that I won't be able to do that this year, as the overnight show is only on weekdays, and they have someone else on the weekend.  Woe is I.

It's kind of amazing how fast the Twelve Days of Duckmas has gone this year.  While much more challenging than normal due to the lack of winter weather (and I'm probably the only person in Duckford complaining about the lack of snow), I think it's turned out okay.  Hopefully you've gotten a kick out of it; the Twelve Days is just about the only time of year I can really be artistically creative, so I enjoy it quite a bit.  Even if it does disrupt normal blogging here at The Pond.

Big finale on Sunday... see you then!

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The Tenth Day Of Duckmas 2011

Lack of snow gotcha down, Binky?  Have I got a solution for you... Insta-Snow!  Just add water and voila!  A lovely snow-like substance... except in my case, because I bought a cheap knockoff ("Insty-Sno") and ended up with a not-as-lovely slush-like substance that eventually ended up looking like well-packed snow.

Y'know, I have to admit that I was surprised at how much it looks like snow "on camera".  However, I am saddened to announce that Insty-Sno did a number on my blackbox setup, and I had to throw it in the dumpster.  Not like that's a big deal or anything... it's just a cardboard box with posterboard lining the inside, I can recreate that at will.  The old setup was pretty worn out anyway.

If you want to see what this picture looked like from a different angle, just click "more"!

more...

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The Ninth Day Of Duckmas 2011

The annual sojourn to the local shopping mall!  I can state for the record that, at least in Duckford, the whole shopping frenzy is alive and well.  On an aside, I'd like to say "hello" to Stephanie, the young lady who cut my hair Wednesday night.  Good job, it looks great... or at least as "great" as my hair ever looks.

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Dental Obnoxiousness Pt III

As you may remember, a couple of Fridays ago I had a tooth pulled.  As those sorts of things go, it went rather smoothly.  The tooth nigh on ejected itself from my mouth, the dentist barely having to pull on it.  As I mentioned previously, I should have realized that this augured not well.  The first setback was the diagnosis of dry socket and the attendant discovery that my oral surgeon was related to the Marquis de Sade.  After that little incident, the toothless socket seemed to be healing well.

But then on Monday I came home from work and washed my face.  As I was scrubbing away with the sandpaper and metal shavings I use as a exfoliant, something in my mouth... hurt.  Sharp pain, like a thumbtack had just been stuck into my gums.  Of course, I tried it again... same thing, but with a twist!  Suddenly there was a fluid in my mouth that hadn't been there before.  I expectorated, and what to my wondering eyes did appear but a gooberful of blood, as if I'd bitten a reindeer.  Now don't get me wrong, it's not like I was gushing blood, and it's not like the pain was particularly bad (I have worse pain in my knees every morning), it's just that after the dry socket experience, I was getting a touch nervous.  That night, when I yawned there was also pain.  The next morning, washed my face, same thing.  Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighhhhhhh.  Once I got into the Duck U Bookstore, I called the Marquis de Ntist, explained my plight, and they said they could get me in today. 

Of course, I scurried over.  After explaining what was going on in my mouth (emphasizing in no uncertain terms that the socket was perfectly fine, hadn't hurt since last week and please don't do that to me again I beg you), he took a look into my gob.  The first words he said were "the extraction site is healing well."  Yay for me!  Pulling the tongue depressor out of my mouth, he then asked if he could "feel the place where it hurts."  Well, yes, I suppose so... that's why I was there, to make sure everything is okay. 

And then I realized what I had just agreed to.  Before I could say "wait, I reconsider," he had his hand in my mouth, put one of his fingers right where the pain came from... and pressed down hard.   

I'm beginning to think that he doesn't like me much.

After my eyeballs stopped bouncing around the room, he told me what was going on.  If I understood him correctly (which I wouldn't bet upon; there was a rather loud ringing in my ears at the time), there's a ridge of bone that supports the teeth just above the jaw.  When a tooth is extracted, sometimes this ridge will irritate the gumline in the vicinity of the site.  From the inside.  In effect, pressure on the site from yawning (tightening the skin of the cheek above the site) or from washing my face (pressing down on the site) is pushing the gums against that ridge of bone.  Try placing your arm on a sawblade, then leaning on it.  Yeah, it's just like that.  Nothing can be done about it, eventually there'll be enough scar tissue involved where it won't hurt anymore... or the edge of the ridge will be worn down enough that it won't hurt anymore.

I've had more trouble with this damn toof after it's been pulled than I ever did when it was in my head.

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The Eighth Day Of Duckmas 2011

A tree needs to be decorated and trimmed, even if there's no snow on the ground.  Right?

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Survival Of The Bloggiest

You may have noticed a distinct lack of anything interesting lately.  Part of that is because, well, I'm sort of tapped out on content-related items.  Yes, I know I've got the Part III of "Which Fighter Is Best?" to do, but that will require effort I'm not entirely ready to devote at the moment... but will soon.

You see, beginning at 130pm Pond Central Time on Thursday, December 22nd, yours truly will be on vacation for the first time since 2009.  I'll be off until January 2nd, and will be able to devote time and effort towards blogcare.  Unless I get Skyrim... then all bets are off.  Heh.

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The Seventh Day Of Duckmas 2011

Happy Hanukkah to all of The Pond's Jewish readers.  May you get lots of gelt and eat lots of latkes and pontshkes over the next eight days!  Mmmmmmm... latkes... there's very little as good as a latke with sour cream.  Excuse me while I drool.

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The Sixth Day Of Duckmas 2011

"Merry Christmas!  Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart."
-Ebeneezer Scrooge, from A Duckmas Carol.

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Hal Far Flight

One of the famous stories of World War II is that of the legendary defenders of Malta, Faith, Hope and Charity. As the legend goes, when Malta was placed under aerial siege by the Italians in June of 1940, there were only three British fighters to defend the entire island.  To make things even more grim, the fighters were obsolete Gloster Sea Gladiators, the last biplane fighter in RAF/FAA inventory.  These three planes managed to hold back the Italian Regia Aeronautica until the Germans got involved in early 1941.  It's a wonderful story, one that surely went a long way toward boosting British morale in those dark days of the War. 

Like many of those types of stories, there's quite a bit of... um... let's call it embellishment... involved.

more...

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The Fifth Day Of Duckmas 2011

If you wanted to whistle music from The Nutcracker as you look at this picture, I wouldn't blame you.

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The Fourth Day Of Duckmas 2011

If there's one thing that just about every college or university student can agree on, it's that the food in the cafeteria is never good enough.  I actually rather like the food service at Duck U, m'self.  Sure, it's no gourmet five-star restaurant, but it's good, tasty food with a wide and varied selection every day.  Nevertheless, it's probably written in the handbook that a college student has the god-given right to complain about the food at their school, and the student body at Duck U does so at every opportunity.  Breakfast, lunch, dinner, none of it is acceptable.

Except for the desserts.  Those earn universal praise.  Cookies, cakes, ice creams, donuts, scones (om nom nom!), puddings, and on and on... all of it made right there in the Duck U kitchens.  The ducklings are lucky, and they know it. 

There was a lot of "soooooo cute!!!"ing at the sight of the gingerbread duckies that day.  It was kinda funny, actually.

^{We got less than a quarter-inch of snow last night.  It's already melting away.}

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The Third Day Of Duckmas 2011

When the snowducks begin to grumble, you know there's something big going down.

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The Second Day Of Duckmas 2011

Gotta keep the rain off the presents!

You can't tell from the photo, but it was raining to beat the band while I was taking this.

Rain.  Less than two weeks from Christmas, and it's raining!  Doesn't Ma Nature realize I have duck pictures to take???

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Dental Obnoxiousness Pt II

As you may remember, last Friday I had a tooth pulled.  It went rather smoothly, to be honest.  He wasn't even finished saying "Okay, here we go" before the tooth was out of my jaw.  It was like all it needed was a little tug and voila!  All done!  Didn't even bleed all that much, or for very long.  Looking back at it, I should have realized that just meant things would go wrong eventually.

The past few days, the location of the former tooth has been kinda tender, and it ached a bit after eating.  "Well, yeah," I hear you saying, "you just had a tooth ripped out of your jaw, it's no wonder it was tender and sore."  And I completely agree with you.  At worst, I'd take a tylenol and the slight burning ache would go away.  Something nagged at me, though; when I had a tooth pulled in the past, I don't remember my mouth hurting at all five days afterwards.  So I called the oral surgeon that did the yanking, told his nurse what was going on, and she said c'mon in!  Their office is just a few minutes away from the Duck U Bookstore, so that wasn't a problem.  I told my boss that I'd be gone for a half-hour or so, and all would be right with the world.  What could possibly go wrong?

I sat in the dentist chair, and the first thing he did after I told him that the area was tender... was to poke it.  "Did that hurt?"  Yes, all things considered.  I hope you weren't surprised by that answer, Doc, since I just told you that it was tender.  "Well, let me rinse the site out with sailine solution."

After they scraped me off the ceiling, Doc gave me the good news: DRY SOCKET!  For those who don't know, dry socket is an event where the blood clot that forms after an extraction... fails or never forms at all.  In essence, you've got a hole in your mouth that goes right down to the jawbone.  Usually this is a ridiculously painful thing, though in my case it wasn't bad at all.  Or maybe it was; I've always had a high tolerance for pain.  Heck, I passed 13 kidneystones in one year, including two while I was at work, and not only did I not go home, but I sold five Preferred Reeders cards while I was doing the passing.  I'm no stranger to pain is what I'm saying, but I know I've been a bit grumpy this week.  Easily annoyed, too: did you color in the little graph paper squares on your rental book sticker?  Grrrrrrr.  Don't know what your class number is?  GRRRRRRRR!  Talking on your cellphone while I'm trying to tell you how much your textbook is worth?  You'd best believe you're going to die very very soon, probably when I shove that textbook into someplace sensitive... like your spleen.  So maybe the dry socket pain has been working its magic on me.  Fortunately, there's a solution for dry socket pain; a mixture of analgesics, zinc oxide and oil of cloves.  Takes the ouchies right away... except it has to go in the socket, right up against the exposed bone.  The nurse handed me a few kleenex (wha?), and as I reclined in the chair, I wondered just exactly what the kleenex were for.  Then the doc tried to apply the oil-of-clove-saturated packing material to the socket.

I do not scream.  I have seen my foot pointing backwards after falling off a loading dock.  I have caught a windmilling 16'-0" length of 2x4 with my face, breaking my nose.  I've passed thirteen kidneystones.  I cracked open a kidney auditioning for a play.  I have been on fire... twice.  At no time during these incidents did I ever scream in agony.  Most of the time, I didn't even yelp in pain.  Today, as the doc tried and failed to set the packing stuff into that hole in my mouth, I groaned very loudly... and I discovered what the kleenex was for as I crushed it in my hand.  He tried a second time... and the groan became much higher-pitched.  A third time.  Fourth.  Fifth.  "That socket just doesn't want to let it stay there," said the doc.  A sixth try, and not only did I scream like a little girl, I tried very hard to squirm out of the chair, down the hallway and out into the traffic on Duckford's busiest street.  On the seventh attempt to apply the pain-killing solution, he finally succeeded... by liberal application of what felt like 20d box nails.

On the plus side, there's no pain now.  Hopefully, it'll stay that way... I don't think I can take another application of pain-killers.

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The First Day Of Duckmas 2011

Push the button, Frank, it's time for the Twelve Days of Duckmas again!

Ah, the duckie in a fir tree, the usual beginning to the Twelve Days of Duckmas.  This will be the fifth year of holiday duckies, and this one's going to be different from the previous four.  See, in the past there's been no shortage of snow around Pond Central and Duck U when the Twelve Days came around, but not this year.  According to the weather nabobs, there's a chance of flurries in a week or so... and that's it; snow-free until sometime after the 25th.  I love a challenge. 

Tune in every day between now and Christmas Day for a new Duckmas photo!

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2001

This is post number 2001 here at Wonderduck's Pond.

What, you expected me to ignore the obvious?

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2000

This is the 2000th post here at Wonderduck's Pond.  If you had told me back on July 8th, 2005, that I'd eventually put up another 1999 posts, or that I'd still be blogging six-and-a-half years later, I think I would have laughed at you.  I would have laughed even harder if you told me that people would actually be interested in reading my mental meanderings.  But yet, here we are in December of 2011... I'm typing the two-thousandth post, you're reading the two-thousandth post (though I'm not sure you're interested), and I can't imagine what it would be like to not be blogging anymore.  How incredible.
Thank you, folks.  I appreciate it!

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Dental Obnoxiousness

I curse my teeth.

Last week, I was chewing on a duck chow-on-rye sandwich when I felt something odd towards the back of my jaw.  Inspecting the oddness with the tip of my tongue, I discovered chunks of filling mixed in with the masticated rye bread.  The tooth it came from didn't hurt and it felt like there was still a good bit of filling left.  Unconcerned, I figure that the chunks of filling (which was quite old; 25 years?) just fell off the face of the tooth, and it'd be a simple spackle job to repair.  Y'know, mix up some amalgam, trowel it onto the remainder of the filling, bish bash bosh, all done.  So I hied myself to the dentist the next day so he could give me the good news.

He didn't.  While indeed big chunks of the filling did come loose, and there was still filling material covering and protecting the original cavity, the rest of the tooth decayed around it.  So much in fact that the outside enamel face of the tooth fell off.  The smooth stuff that I thought was filling material is actually the dentine of the tooth.  As my dentist described it to me, the enamel is like a suit of plate armor.  The dentine is the leather undershirt.  The next step is the soft squishy human underneath (or the tooth's pulp, in this case).  Much to my surprise, the dentist immediately suggested having it pulled instead of trying to save it.  He ALWAYS recommends trying to save the tooth first.  In this case though, it's unpaired, meaning there'd be no reduction in my chewing ability (the molar above it was the first that I had removed, nearly 30 years ago); there's other teeth in my mouth that the money a root canal would cost would be better spent on.

The tooth comes out Friday afternoon.  I'll let y'all know how it went as soon as I can... probably in the evening.

UPDATE: It's out.  Came out nice and easy.  It's about four hours later, and the novocaine has pretty much all worn off.  It's still bleeding a touch, but that's to be expected.  The best part of the whole thing was definitely the nitrous oxide... baby!

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70 Years

Today is the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  It will also be the final one for the Pearl Harbor Survivor's Association, which will disband on December 31st, 2011, ending its 53-year existence.  There may only be around 2000 or so men left of those who were at Pearl that Sunday morning.  Today, we remember those who fought, those who died and those vanishing few who remain.

And we offer our thanks.

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Name This Mystery Ship IX

Just because I stumbled upon this story last week, name this mystery ship!



No cheating, folks... that takes all the fun out of it.

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