laser eye surgery
 

Yes. I've had laser surgery twice on both eyes. Both times with PRK.

I first started wearing glasses when I was ten years old. By the time I was in my mid 20s, I could not see the big E.

The first time was in 1997/1998. I had had a very bad eye infection in early 1997, and I could no longer wear contacts. I hate glasses with the passion of a thousand firey suns, so I decided to go with laser surgery. The first surgery was in October and it went perfectly. The second was scheduled for three months later, and they gave me a temporary contact lens for the uncorrected eye. I was taking the bar exam in Feb of 1998, so I decided to delay the surgery until March. The first day of the three day bar exam, I watched the contact lens dissolve in my hand as I was preparing to put it on. I took that day of the bar exam with one eye, and I called frantically around after that day of testing was over so I could get a replacement lens for the rest of the exam. I had the second surgery two weeks later. I was in a protocol for a university and I had follow up for two years after the surgery. My vision immediately after the surgery was 20/16 and 20/12. It stayed in that range when I came in for follow up.

In March, I tried to take a driver's exam for my license and I failed in my left eye. I went back to my surgeon and he said that from time to time the eyes will revert and they have to do another surgery or I'd have to go back to glasses for driving. I didn't even notice that my vision had deteriorated at all, and certainly it was a new thing because I had successfully gotten a license in California in 2000. Anyhow, my surgeon had a new laser and we scheduled for late June. This time we did both eyes at once, again with the PRK. I went back for a check up three weeks ago and my vision is back to 20/20, and as far as anyone can tell, it will stay that way.

Some things about the surgery itself. The first time I did it, I don't remember any pain and I recall (maybe it's faulty memory) almost instantaneous correction to my vision. This time around, there wasn't much pain directly after the surgery, but two days later I was sobbing in my bed because I couldn't stand how much my eyes were hurting me. It took a full three days before I could see well enough to function (i.e. look at the computer). The drops are a pain in the ass, but they're necessary.

The first time you go in for screening, they do all sorts of measurements of your eye to see if you qualify for the surgery. Cool topographical maps of your eyes, as well as the more traditional "a or b" type of vision tests. A few days before your surgery, you go in and they put the killer (two day) dialating drops in, and they do every test there is to do to make sure that everything is ready for the surgery. The day of the surgery you go in, they give you anesthisa drops and possibly valium, and then they take you to the surgery suite. They hop you on a table, adjust it to the laser, and then put one of those Clockwork Orange type speculums on your lids to keep your eye open. There are probably more drops somewhere in there. Then, the surgeon comes in and gently scrapes off the top layer of cells on your eyes. To me, it felt like he was taking an eraser to my eye, but it didn't hurt. It just felt like he was rubbing stuff away. Then there's a hydrating thing, which I think is the most uncomfortable part of the surgery, because they're pouring water on your eye to lubricate/clean it but you can't blink and it just has to run off your face. Then they position you under the laser. You focus on the red/green dot and the laser starts zapping. They talk you through the whole thing and if you move the laser will automatically stop. I can attest that you pretty much stay totally still because you know instinctively how much is at stake. Then they give more drops, and put a contact lens in to act sort of like a bandage. They take off the speculum thing and they're done or they move on to repeat the process for the next eye. There were two sets of drops and some oral pain medication that they gave to me for the surgery, plus detailed instructions. I had to go in the next morning for a follow up, and then the next week. That's when they take out the contact lens, if it's ready to be taken out (for me, my right eye was ready, but we had to wait an extra week for my left eye). I went back after a month, and I have another appointment in six weeks. My vision is fine and I don't feel that anything went wrong with the surgery. My surgeons agree.

I can't comment on LASIK vs. PRK. I would ask your surgeon. I have the benefit of having four cousins that are ophthalmologists, so I knew who the best surgeon in town was when I started looking. As I mentioned before, I was on a clinical trial during my first surgery. I had an astigmatism in my left eye, and that qualified me for the trial. I come from a medical/scientific background so I didn't have problems being in a trial, though some people do. This time around no trial, but I think I got a significant discount for being a repeat patient.

Even though I had to have a second surgery, I highly recommend the whole procedure. I trust my surgeon, and I knew and evaluated the risks going in. I read up a lot on the whole thing when I did the surgery, and afterwards I looked up the study that I participated in in order to try and understand what they were looking at. I chose my surgeon by asking around and seeing who other physicians recommended. I would ask how many surgeries the surgeon has done and how new the equipment is. This is an area where I was not concerned about cost, and I would be hesitant to go to someone just because they were more inexpensive than the other guys.

Anyhow, that's just my experience, and definitely talk to your own doctors, but I have no regrets about either surgery with the exception of the stress caused by the contact lens.

Host?!? Guest?!?
 

Then wouldn't it be...From whose dick did it originate?

Maintenance poll.
 

How much energy does it take to tell the kids not to touch a fucking thing in the living room? It worked for my parents, and for generations before them. I don't get this idea that children have an equal claim to property.

laser eye surgery
 

sorry for the non-substantive post, but thank you very much.

My mom never did this for my birthday
 

I caught a few minutes of Bachelor Party while channel surfing (it appears to be on high rotation on cable for some reason), and I was rather nostalgic remembering the '80s when there seemed to be some general assumption that, because hookers were selling sex, hookers were hot.
And horny, for that matter. Maybe I was just young, but I distinctly remember some glamor attaching to the profession. (Might explain the hair and makeup of the decade, actually.)

I guess I don't know who to blame other than the producers of COPS for the destruction of that little fantasy.

laser eye surgery
 

This is where logic and rationality fade, and the recoil reflex sets in.

Glasses aren't SO bad . . .

laser eye surgery
 

My mom did lasik with a surgeon who does pro golfers. She figured he had to be good if they trusted him. This was 2.5 years ago and she has had no complications, no problems.

Maintenance poll.
 

For those two people, who had let their entire house go to hell in a handbasket, I would bet that it is utterly inconceivable to them to enforce a "don't touch stuff in the living room" rule. These are people who lived with their floor literally coming apart and total chaos for what must have been a pretty extended period of time.

I wasn't fond of the guy in that makeover.

Maintenance poll.
 

It would be utterly inconceivable to me to enforce a "don't touch stuff in the living room" rule. Tight-ass folk with plastic-covered furniture and expensive ceramics at waist level should simply adopt via Sally Struthers.

My mom never did this for my birthday
 

I used to waitress with a prostitute who was very very hot. (Her waitressing stint was extremely short-lived as the money sucked, relatively speaking, but we stayed in touch. She was fucked up but very nice). Anyway, she had an ad in the back pages of the weekly alternative magazine (NOW, for str8's benefit) and she had her own studio apt that she worked out of - she didn't live there. Streetwalkers are generally ugly. Prostitutes as a whole are not. Some are beautiful, but just a little short of model-type, if this girl and her friends were any indication.

laser eye surgery
 

The day I did my first surgery back in 1997, my mom was with me for the surgery. The first thing she said when my surgeon was finished was "can you do it for me too?"

She had LASIK instead. At first, they did the "one eye for distance/ one eye for reading" thing, but she could never get used to it, so they recorrected her entirely for distance and she just keeps reading glasses all over the place now. She hasn't had any problems with distance at all since the surgery. If I recall correctly, with LASIK there was some sort of plastic eye patch that she wore to protect the eye from any outside pressure at all.

Yoga Gone Bad
 

Speaking of ugly people getting naked --

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/impecovein1.html

[spree: closer to god mugshot]

Maintenance poll.
 

If there's plastic on the furniture, the kids can go in. silly.

Yoga Gone Bad
 

Is that why she looks like a man with a Jesus haircut?

Maintenance poll.
 

This explains a lot.

Edited to say that I considered saying that if Atticus were ever to visit my home he could touch things in my living room, but I didn't want to sound like Gatti.

My mom never did this for my birthday
 

She'd rather suck than have the money suck? (Sorry.)

I spent a small bit of time helping a guy representing a bunch of strippers/prostitutes before entering "dignified law", and will attest that they run the gamut from beautiful to ten-foot-stick-ugly types. Their prices were usually very accurately reflective of where they fell on this continuum.

Maintenance poll.
 

We all know you want him. If there's plastic on the furniture you won't have the issue barely had with that comforter. But you might be uncomfortable.

Maintenance poll.
 

I see your point, but I knew what was available to me to play with and what wasn't, and I followed the rules I was given. I could play with things in my room or outside or in the playroom, but not in the formal living room or in front of guests. A lot of kids I know grew up this way.

Try it. They may turn out like me and I am PERFECT.

Maintenance poll.
 

I was going to say that if you were ever to come over to my house, you could play with things in the formal living room in front of guests and you would still be perfect, but I was afraid I would sound like chef.

Edited to acknowledge that this lecherous girl act is starting to creep me out. Some of you have been very bad influences on me.

Maintenance poll.
 

We haven't been bad enough influences if it is still an act.

You've come a long way, baby.
 

She'll get there. She's already progressed to posts in which she hands people's heads to them. On plates.

Damn her eyes!

smiling amnesty
 

I just saw AMMs post about the Canadian passport situation. I happen to have mine on me since I am doing some immigration stuff and I checked the picture and as luck would have it, I am grinning like an idiot. I would like to thank the Canadian gov't for the smiling amnesty so I don't have to go out and change my fucking passport right away.

You've come a long way, baby.
 

I only do that to people whose heads don't appear to be serving much purpose on their necks.


Edited to add:
http://www.digikitten.com/playhousev.../dolci_sj2.jpg

Paging Wannabe Graphic Designers and Reality TV
 

What typeface would you use to convey the mood of the utter pointless repetitiousness of life (you know, like being a GA)?

Would you recommend a different one if the type would be superimposed over a grayish cropped version of Munch's Scream?

PM me to avoid distracting the Board from sex talk.

Reality TV:

BB4: Jee is so completely clueless. Has he never watched a reality TV show before? Is the concept of throwing a competition to further your long-interest in the game unfamiliar to him? Winning the food reward after condemning the rest of the house to PB&J was stooooopid. Moron.

Cupid: Poor Joe. He is still one of my two favorites and is gaining on Hank. But he was the only one other than Robert whose tonsils Lisa didn't explore. She probably thinks he isn't good looking enough for her. I'd have voted for him but I was out in the country looking at Mars through a telescope. His big family better have hit the speed dial to keep him in the game.

Bravissimo
 

The year was 1996. Everyone was talking about this new big thing the "internet," Chumbawa was on top of the charts, and the Pop-Up Video craze was sweeping the nation.

str8

Paging Wannabe Graphic Designers and Reality TV
 

Is this for offer letters to the summer associates?
cc me so I can take the idea down to recruiting.

Edited to ask, how do I make the picture of the chick with the head on the platter my avatar? I find it appealing. It might not size down well, though.

Penelope Cruz Redux
 

Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Correct

NCS is right, just inarticulate.

Cruz is beautiful, but her face is flawed in that her nose is a bit too long, a bit too pointy, and the transition from the tip upward a bit too abrupt. This flaw is more or less evident depending on the camera angle, but she is still hot. It's not as if she has a square-head, like some of Europeans with Germanic members.

http://www.infirmation.com/file-stor...rsion_id=13382

Paging Wannabe Graphic Designers and Reality TV
 

While Arial does a decent job, I'd pick courier. It lacks style and interest. Andale mono is also good.

Penelope Cruz Redux
 

Please shrink this photo to fit within our guidelines.

Here are the instructions:
http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/sho...id=127#post127

Maintenance poll.
 

I'm still not allowed in my parents' living room. Except on special occasions. But I'm certainly not allowed to mess with things.

I guess the ban might have been lifted by now, I never thought to ask.

Time for Plated's fringebenefit
 

Originally posted by ltl/fb

I'd think you'd enjoy being on plated while she handles your head.

Maintenance poll.
 

No, my dear, its not. So sorry. We had considered lifting it as a gift for your 30th birthday, but between the new white sofas and your ass fetish thing, we were forced to reconsider.

Looks like its still the rumpus room in the basement for you.

Luv,

Mother and Father

Paging Wannabe Graphic Designers and Reality TV
 

Personally, to convey that kind of mood, I would and do use Times New Roman --- the relentless, pitiless beige of the typeface world. YMMV.

Just think --- when Apple was choosing the PostScript fonts it would embed in its revolutionary LaserWriter in 1985, the choice for simple serif text came down to Times and another Adobe serif called Janson Text. The choice was momentous, because it would dictate what would be the default serif type for all time.

Times won out, firmly entrenching it as the gold standard for all two-bit desktop publishers and anyone else without imagination. Adobe charged hundreds of dollars for PostScript fonts, condemning Janson Text to relative obscurity. The rest is history. Just think how much more colorful and rewarding our lives would be if Janson Text, an infinitely more graceful and elegant face, had won that battle! Oh, the humanity!

Times
http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/gi...Q-10005000.GIF

Janson Text:
http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/gi...Q-10005000.GIF

Paging Wannabe Graphic Designers and Reality TV
 

Yes, but we'd get fewer words on the page.

For anyone who is interested, the folks I had to testify against were found guilty today. Of course, they have a right of appeal which I expect them to take, but it was still pretty sweet. The judge didn't seem amused by their antics as shown on the video I took.

Just minor crimes so they all got a small fine.


And on another note, I got another picture today, so cool. Now I have two women and two men, and however many TM has to add to the pile.

In other words, send more pictures to leagl NOW for her "research"!

Even(congrats on your case)Odds

Reality TV humor
 

Fear Factor got reupped today for a big number, mostly because it does brilliantly well in syndication (compared to other reality shows). The economics still work for the big network reality shows, even sans repeats. Maybe they're hoping that Blake Mykoskie's Reality TV Channel takes off in a big way, but I doubt they're building much into their budgets by way of revenues for repeats.

I had lunch today with the guy who's in charge of the audience voting for Cupid (and did the same for Star Search). Since I'm not watching it I couldn't ask him any intelligent questions about audience voting patterns. If he had that job for American Juniors I'd have some questions for him, let me tell you.

Paging Wannabe Graphic Designers and Reality TV
 

And? Wider fonts are better, because overshooting the page limits are the hourly billing GP's best friend. Don't you remember Blaise Pascal's "I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter"? If you added up all the time I've spent in my career honing briefs to fit page limitations, you will have paid for the danishes in the conference room every morning.

Or maybe that's just me. {Spree: self-deprecating Stalin Board link.}

Wannabe typesetter
 

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch

All that learning, and your posts have yet to play with kerning.

Paging Wannabe Graphic Designers and Reality TV
 

That hardly seems appropriate, as you are neither a server of heads (at least, not lately) nor a saint. This seems more apt:

http://www.digikitten.com/playhousev...ppy/images.jpg