My eyes are exhausted right now. Apparently the perk of going to an actual optometrist with an office not in the mall is that you get a lot more tests done (and with only a $25 copay, thanks to my vision insurance from the Daily Press). So I had, in addition to the air-in-the-eyeball glaucoma test (which I secretly believe is just a way to screw with patients), I had vertical beams of light slid back and forth across my eyeballs, did the obligatory “is this better or this better” flippy lens selection, endless eyecharts at various distances and so on.
The upshot: My distance vision is actually getting better, although it’s not back to my early high school days, when I was better than 20/20. On the other hand, age is beginning to show its gray head: My eyes are beginning to show the deterioration that will eventually mean reading glasses for me.
Prescriptions never seem to be written in actual English, so instead of “left” and “right,” my eyeglasses prescription has “O.D.” and “O.S.” Maybe that’s Latin for “left” and “right.” My prescription:
O.D. spherical -0.50, O.D. cylindrical -0.25, O.D. axis 110
O.S. spherical -0.50, O.S. cylindrical -0.25, O.S. axis 080
If anyone knows what that actually means, tell me.
I totally forgot I’d registered for this site an eon ago until I saw that Jonah had posted one of the maps of his travels.
Anyway, here are the places I’ve visited, as of August 2, 2005, not including ones where I just drove straight through (sorry, Massachusetts):
States lived in or visited: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Washington, D.C., Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maine (Hi, Kelly and George!), Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey (Hi, Kris!), New Mexico, New York, North Carolina (Hi, Kathy!), Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia (Hi, Lee!) and Wisconsin.
Countries lived in or visited: the United States, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and United Kingdom.
¡Fascinación!
The San Bernardino County Sun is now hiring entry level reporter positions. Their JournalismJobs.com ad reads in part:
The Sun in San Bernardino has reporter openings to staff community news sections. The Sun, with a daily circulation of more than 70,000, is seeking energetic candidates who want to report and write across a broad range of community-focused topics. The community news section will cover everything from a youth sports to senior citizen activities to local politics to advancing a play at a high school. This is an entry-level position but often provides opportunities to write for the daily. One year of daily or weekly newspaper experience preferred but we will consider strong college graduates with demonstrated ability and experience.
Ah, the sweet sounds of dues being paid. Paying your dues at a 70,000 circulation paper owned by the LA Times ain’t a bad way to get started, though.
 I finally finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” I enjoyed it, even if I’d guessed some of the surprises (from a writing standpoint, some of the twists were a bit obligatory as part of the presumed structure of the series).
I especially enjoyed that she went further than ever in junking the standard format for her novels. I liked the old “Dursleys/train ride/mistaken theory/Quidditch/revelation/end” structure for the first three or four books, but I was ready for something new. And it looks like the next book will toss that structure out the window in a big way. The only thing I didn’t like is the probable long, long, long wait ahead for the conclusion of the series. Anyway, I’ll post a real review to Amazon later this week.
Adults who like Harry Potter might want to check out the forthcoming paperback version of “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.” Be warned, though: This is Harry Potter as done by Jane Austen. If that sounds intriguing to you, I highly recommend the book. I got lost in it for weeks, and loved every minute of it.
From MTV News:
Don’t worry that Liz Phair has chucked it all for teen pop, despite working with Ashlee Simpson’s producer John Shanks on her upcoming album, Somebody’s Miracle, due October 4. “People get very uptight about staying in a certain genre or not breaking out of your expected style,” Phair said. “If I like indie rock, I can’t like pop. Or if I’m a pop person, I have no credibility in rock. But for me, I just decided to go farther and take my aesthetic stand stronger.” Song titles on the more grown-up Miracle include “Leap of Innocence,” “Table for One,” “Stars and Planets,” “Lazy Dreamer” and first single “Everything to Me,” which asks a lover to “take the time to catch me if I fall” while also asking, “Do you really know me at all?” …
Found on Guyville: A New York Times interview with Liz, saying that it’s time for fans who want her to go back to 1993 to move on. The interview is in two scanned-in JPGs over on Guyville. Page One, Page Two. It might require Guyville registration to read them, I dunno.
The official Liz Phair site now has the first single off the album, “Everything to Me,” available for your streaming pleasure in Windows Media and Real Audio.
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