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Northern lights were a pretty ludicrous display last night. It's not usually very strong where I am, but it was as though the heavens dumped a dump truck's worth of green-purple puke everywhere.

Okay, but just to be clear in case you did not do even a quick Google search, it's specifically grapefruit that can hurt/kill you. Not limes or lemons or most oranges, grapefruit. Grapefruit messes with metabolizing enzymes responsible for fully breaking down and flushing drugs, which means those drugs can stick around in you for a lot longer and in higher concentrations than they should, causing more severe side effects and/or possibly even overdoses. Here's a random excerpt from a random article that at least gets the idea across: With most drugs that are affected by grapefruit juice, “the juice lets more of the drug enter the blood,” says Shiew Mei Huang, Ph.D., of the FDA. “When there is too much drug in the blood, you may have more side effects.” For example, if you drink a lot of grapefruit juice while taking certain statin drugs to lower cholesterol, too much of the drug may stay in your body, increasing your risk for liver and muscle damage that can lead to kidney failure. Many drugs are broken down (metabolized) with the help of a vital enzyme called CYP3A4 in the small intestine. Grapefruit juice can block the action of intestinal CYP3A4, so instead of being metabolized, more of the drug enters the blood and stays in the body longer. The result: too much drug in your body. The amount of the CYP3A4 enzyme in the intestine varies from person to person. Some people have a lot of this enzyme and others just a little. So grapefruit juice may affect people differently even when they take the same drug. Although scientists have known for several decades that grapefruit juice can cause too much of certain drugs in the body, more recent studies have found that the juice has the opposite effect on a few other drugs. “Grapefruit juice can cause less fexofenadine to enter the blood,” decreasing how well the drug works, Huang says. Fexofenadine (brand name Allegra) is available as both prescription and OTC to relieve symptoms of seasonal allergies. Fexofenadine may also not work as well if taken with orange or apple juice, so the drug label says, “Do not take with fruit juices.” Why this opposite effect? Instead of changing metabolism, grapefruit juice can affect proteins in the body known as drug transporters, some of which help move a drug into our cells for absorption. As a result, less of the drug enters the blood and the drug may not work as well, Huang says. Hope you make it through the medical issue you're dealing with. If it's chemotherapy (and I don't know that it is and nobody here needs to know if that's what it is...I've just had family and friends who have gone through it and have repeatedly said how awful it is, and how it makes it so they simply cannot eat), there's a strong possibility you do not want to be having grapefruit with it - everywhere I see seems to say "DO NOT MIX CHEMOTHERAPY WITH GRAPEFRUIT". If your doctor has okay-ed grapefruit, then okay.

Just more evidence that the radical left has infiltrated the French Police. Indeed, this is the major problem with police today, massive far left wing infiltration and here is the proof! To use an appropriately French phrase "o tempora, o mores!", per the old pirate in the Asterix comics.

Wanna see a magic trick? Watch a 80k watch disappear. (timestamp didn't save, go to the 11th minute)

on the off chance gd is suffering from ______________, am gonna avoid describing how miserable and soul crushing is having to endure the symptoms or treatment o' ___________. ... we were engaged during our last year o' law school when we discovered we had a condition which had a high chance o' leading to significant health problems at some point in the future. ended the engagement 'cause from experience we knew how hard is such health problems on family and close friends. US health care also means even minor medical issues may financial devastate a family, and that sorta pain is disproportionate felt by lower-middle and lower income families. we don't wish serious health problems on even those we dislike. tangential related, we got our urgent ortho surgery referral today and scheduled an appointment. may 16. am only imagining what a not urgent time frame woulda' entailed. HA! Good Fun!

I still shudder about taking my mom to chemo, that stuff messed her up so bad. I had a couple of cancer scares in the past few years and I wasn't sure I'd go through it if I had to.

add us to the list o' folks who will caution 'bout the grapefruit thing. chemotherapy btw is not just 'bout treating cancer. is a number o' med issues treated by chemotherapy and not all is dire. can't speak to cancer treatment, but at least one o' those not cancer chemotherapy treatments is impacted by grapefruit in multiple ways 'cause even when one o' your meds is not immediate impacted by grapefruit, the testing you routine go through to check deviations and changes to baseline numbers may be skewed by grapefruit. HA! Good Fun!

What Bartimaeus said, you really ought to double and triple check that your medicine doesn't interact with grapefruit. To my great dismay, most of mine has interactions so I've had to give it up, it's my favourite drink 😭

Had to really resist the urge to put this in the anime thread...

@Amentep Same, square / rectangular sheet pans. But it sure seemed like a crapshoot on the portion size. Im sure if I tried it today it would shatter my rose colored glasses, but pizza day was a big deal back then.

So the protest in France hit 1 million people for the low ball estimates and 3.5 million for the highest estimates.

Went to my ophthalmologist for a checkup today. The same doctor as usual, the experience was vastly improved though, by the simple fact that she decided to go fully private, meaning she no longer has any contracts with our regular, public insurance companies. Instead of health insurance paying the checkup, you pay the bill yourself, and then hand in the bill and get reimbursed up to a certain amount (for me and my really bad eyesight that is going to be roughly 80% of the bill, for others, much less), with the rest potentially covered by any additional, private health insurance. In the past the waiting time was like an hour, sometimes even more when some acute case came in. Last time I had to wait hours just to see the doctor, in spite of having an appointment, because someone came in with glass splinters in their eyes. I mean, yeah, I get it, that does take priority over a regular check. Today though, I was ten minutes early, got to the checkup immediately, then got eye drops (for dilation, looked like a junkie afterwards) and a complete ophthalmoscopy. Took 20 minutes. Well, aside from being half-blind, nothing's noticably wrong. Pupil dilation is back to normal too, and none too soon, everything was uncomfortably bright. To think people used to use atropine eye drops for beauty effects in the past (it is how belladonna allegedly got its name - pretty woman). What a stupid idea.

up until 2016 we voted based on individual candidate character, competence and goals as 'posed to party affiliation, but we tended towards choosing moderate republicans more often than not. the thing is, in 2023, the republicans has become a party which downplays or even defends the the inhumane treatment o' immigrants, the use o' masked federal agents in unmarked vans to kidnap individuals w/o a warrant or even probable cause, the events o' january 6 and book banning. even if we ignore the corpulent orange elephant in the room, am not seeing how is possible to vote conscience and republican in 2023 albeit with one exception. regardless, even if you are in favour o' fiscal responsibility and small government (which is maybe not current gop values but is definite not major issues for the democrats) am seeing as near impossible to align self with the party banning the kite runner, the handmaid's tale and 1984. am also agreeing raskin is "good at this" kinda thing but admittedly the current gop makes it ez. HA! Good Fun!

I just hope it's not chemotherapy period. My gosh, I hope that stuff is just about completely retired in favor of something far less nasty and more effective someday, and the sooner the better. I have...less than great memories of seeing what it does to people. I also have little desire to suffer through it myself in my middle or old age... I do not believe I would cope well.

Uh, did you make sure that the grapefruit was a-okay for whatever medication that was? Grapefruit has potentially fatal interactions for a pretty wide variety of medications. Grapefruit is probably my favorite fruit, but there may come a day when I'm too old and take too many medications to be able to safely eat it anymore...

Did taxes, and can now afford Popeye's for dinner

Not usually anything more than very faintly, but last night was a real...oh, that's what they're supposed to look like! moment.

I think we had 2% as well. I'm a whole milk or no milk kind of person so I didn't drink it. I think I usually traded it or gave it away.

I still hold a bit of a grudge because grade school wouldn't let me take the orange juice, the only thing I actually wanted, instead of the garbage 2% milk. Who in their right mind drinks 2% milk, and out of a cardboard carton no less? That cow-flavored paper-infused swill water is downright inhumane. No, they said if I wasn't actually lactose intolerant, I have to drink the milk. What, did you guys have a terribly limited supply of orange juice? Fine, I'll go back to eating nothing at lunch - we were too poor for me to be wastin' money on lunches I wasn't going to eat anyways. Of course, looking back now, the easy solution would've been just to lie. Damn, why didn't I think of that back in second grade? What a maroon I was.

nuTrek went with keeping Jar Jar Abram's Star Trek 2009's opening events, meaning the Romulan Star Empire was more or less destroyed, and they're galactic refugees now*. Never mind how utterly dumb the idea was in the first place, it is what it is. They install a cloaking device from a Klingon Bird of Prey on the USS Titan, and Geordi is all like: "Do you have any idea how many treaties you're violating?" Yes, indeed. One irrelevant one. I mean technically the Romulan Free State is still around and the Federation mantains that treaty, but, uhm... it really is whatever at this point. *Unless they need to be a threat, in which case the Romulans can muster an enormous fleet out of nowhere to face off Picard at the end of the first season. They couldn't ferry their own refugees or evacuate Romulus properly with the thousands and thousands of ships they have, but hey... Condolences are in order, I think. Have "fun".

Based "The police did everything to protect the demonstrators"

I have to say I'm disappointed, I thought this would be a movie magic thing but you can see him put his hands under the table to take the watch off. I guess the people who would normally edit that out hit the streets.

another GOG spring sale giveaway. https://www.gog.com/game/neurodeck_psychological_deckbuilder

A small piece? Like real piece sliced by hands in triangle-ish shapes? Ours were always preformed squares of pizza - roughly the size of the entree portion of the plastic tray they were plopping it on...

I got my second Shingles shot yesterday and my arm is a little sore. Those fatcats raised the price too since last November, from $205.99 to $218.99! Thank the FSM my insurance picked it up.

^ There was once a time when people thought HammerFall was cheesy.

I mean they already did...

It is certain Amerika will bomb Europe before Russia.

A story about situation in Avdiivka from UA infantrymen POV. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2023/03/20/7394127/

I remember last year around this time I got an MRI for my shoulder, to see if it could be fixed surgically, getting the MRI itself wasn't any issue, but it took four months before they decided that it'd take to long to find someone to look at it, so they snailmailed it to Spain for someone to look at the images. Took a total of 6 or so months after the MRI to get the results -.-

The Cases Against Trump: A Guide the article perhaps oversimplifies a smidge, but am not finding fault in the overall analysis save to note am viewing the fulton, georgia case with a bit less ambivalence. "Willis has the advantage of the recording of the Raffensperger call, which is close to a smoking gun." the thing is, there is now three confirmed recordings o' trump pressuring people to find him votes in georgia. david ralston and an investigator from the georgia state secretary's office also made recordings. is a small armory o' smoking guns? how many smoking guns is needed to make one confident about a prosecutor's chances? have said previous, and am reiterating, any jury trial involving trump is gonna be uncertain. that said, we would have an extreme difficult time explaining why the people o' georgia did not pursue charges 'gainst trump. converse, we mentioned in an earlier post how am not confident 'bout the ny case, but am admitted not an expert on ny law. 'course am not even certain what is the charges which may be brought in the ny case, although the speculation 'bout crimes for which trump may be held accountable is based on decent information as 'posed to pure conjecture. even so, bragg's efforts is resulting in more angst than am thinking is warranted. mar-a-lago and fulton is where we believe trump is most vulnerable. is serious vulnerability in both cases. HA! Good Fun!

Man, I remember pizza day was such a treat! Waiting for your slice, hoping you didnt get hosed with a small piece. Good times.

Minnesota became a blue trifecta by the thinnest of margins this past election, and so far...I don't think I've had any cause for complaint.

Got up and went for a short walk. It's cold and dreary out but it still felt good. Then choked down two pills that look like something I'd give to a horse and chased it with a glass of grapefruit juice.

And every Friday should be pizza day!

This should be standard practice in every state.

Resident Evil 4's Marketing is on point:

a couple lamplighter updates: Dev Diary #1: Game Vision Dev Diary #2: Your Agents HA! Good Fun!

Walz signs universal school meals bill into Minnesota law “If you’re looking for good news, this was certainly the place to be,” said Walz. “I’m honored and I do think this is one piece of that puzzle in reducing both childhood poverty and hunger insecurity.” HA! Good Fun!

https://counter-strike.net/cs2 Won't be the same without the porn sprays and racism over voice chat.

A fairly positive preview for Redfall, and even better they might be lifting always online requirement and no store or microtransactions. I am still scepting if multiplayer game will be able to support depth of the usual Arcane offering, and disappointing Deathloop has greatly reduced my expecations. Still, I am all for any good news regarding Arcane. An update on Jake Solomon. He is looking to open a new studio and work on some system driven "life simulator". He seems to be done with turn based strategy games. Firaxis allegiedly "is changing". Boy, that does not sound good. In the gaming industry things rarely change for the better.

A nightly visitor on the mosquito net... at first I thought it was one of those walking stick insects because it's huge (larger than my hand), but closer inspection revealed it to be a praying mantis. Good thing I'm not a potential snack 😁 When not admiring the late evening life on my upper floor balcony, I'm busy working on my Alpha Legion for games of Horus Heresy. It took a few failed attempts at getting the colour right. At first they were too green, then too dark, now I get the turquoise I wanted. Using the airbrush to give them first a few different shades of metallic and then a mix of clear blue (and just a little bit!) green.... After those "base" colours, they get a good, hefty layer of gloss varnish and then it's time for next step. A bit of black oil paint dissolved in a spirit solution. The capillary effect means the black paint (which dries a lot slower than the spirit) gets deposited in all the crevasses and armour edges for some extra definition and "depth". When dry (I wait 24 hours for the oil paint to be properly dry), it's time for the next step, which is the transfers/decals. Not shown here, but once they are dry, it's time for some satin varnish and then paint in all the details. Straps, backpacks, guns, eye lenses etc. The guys behind the legionnaires is my other work in progress, painting my Death Korps Kill Team (still need to paint helmets, boots, shoulder pads and guns as well as the bases for those)

After quite a long stretch last year in tutorial hell doing Udemy courses on React and Node I've started building my own projects, trying to produce things that I can use in a portfolio. I'm working in a hotel/holiday park at the moment as a waiter and the restaurant only have paper menus, so I pitched the idea of doing a digital menu instead. I built a prototype with React as a front-end only web app, it means only I can make changes to it but for the hotel it’s more affordable because they wouldn’t have to pay for a backend server. The way I’ve coded it basically means that the site takes arrays for each menu category (starters, burgers, steaks ect) and generates the web page based off of those, this means it’s really quick and easy to update the menu. If they want, I can turn it into a full stack application and make an interface where they can change the menu themselves. The FOH manager and head chef seemed to like it, we’re too busy in the restaurant to go ahead with it right now but hopefully it'll get green lighted later. https://172v-restaurant-proto.netlify.app/ I also started working on a stupid little map app of the area where I work to practice using a library called Leaflet. Leaflet basically allows you to setup your own google maps in your web sites and include custom markers and a few other features like that. It looked a bit jankey but it was functional and was the first project where I had enough state variables to make good use of the useReducer hook. I definitely wouldn’t add this one to my portfolio but I did learn lessons from it. Tonight, I’m going back over the Node.js project I did as part of a Udemy course and I’m trying to make sure I understand and memorize the different refactoring tricks Jonas used in his course as it makes the code a lot easier to read and write. Then I’ll need to build something of my own again. Right now I’m pretty comfortable with React but with Node I can only do basic CRUD operations so the goal is to just focus on Node for a month or two until I get to a decent level with it. Part of me worries that this is a mistake and I should just focus on front-end for now until I can get a job but since due to real-life circumstances I wouldn’t be in a position to accept a job until autumn anyway, my hope is that knowing full stack will mean more job opportunities in the long run and also just make me a more well-rounded programmer.

Allegedly being the key word, yeah. Apparently everything shown last year was scheduled for release within the next twelve months, but Starfield at least has slipped back to September. Really hoping it does come soon though. There's not a lot on my radar right now, but Silksong definitely is. As for Avowed, if there is still no news at this years Meh-3, then I'm pushing it back to 2025 in my mind and finding something else to be excited about for a bit. I don't expect Starfield to have any real degree of depth as it widens its play space to ridiculous levels, but it might at least tide me over for a few months with it's various systems if it actually lands in September... Baldur's Gate 3 lands around the end of August too, and that's my online co-op game covered for a nice long while.

Lust Theory season 2 is 10% off