LadyCrimson

But could you do so, anyway? I want to strengthen the tendons/muscles around the finger/hand joints, in the hopes it'll help increase mobility/strength and lessen the frequency of flare-ups. There are arthritis sites that list some basic hand exercise stuff, but most of them seemed designed for people with already severe problems or very weak hands...ie, they're too gentle to be much use to me. Edit: I don't, btw, actually have arthritis - at least it hasn't been diagnosed as such, yet. I'm also partially double-jointed, which makes some of the 'normal' finger exercises actually worse for my joints, because my fingers are not naturally 'straight' when held up flat/outspread, and joints tend to pop/lock a lot as a result. I don't know if that makes any sense... I'm afraid that's likely not possible for me at this time. I have a hard time opening glass jars or even pushing in doorknob buttons on many days, let alone lifting heavy weights.

That oven looks really awesome, except I think I'd still use the regular oven for short-time meats like burgers/small steaks, to make sure they're cooked hot enough long enough. But cutting the time for cooking anything that usually takes 30-60 minutes or more is always fantastic. Interesting, the way they seem to use a combo of microwaves and airflow cooking.

...

So I thought I'd ask the exercise guru's - what's the best way to exercise the hands/finger joints? I gently squeeze rubber balls ... is there anything better?

Researched the "anti-inflammatory diet" fad, decided it was, in most cases, largely the same years old common-sense diet rules wrapped in a shiny new title, then went and ate some non-fat yogurt w/fruit and popped some more Advil.

The Ark of Truth - which is a direct-to-DVD movie-length continuation/plot wrapper for the Stargate series, or something. It was ok. The series was pretty much gasping for air when it stopped production, and this movie doesn't improve on that at all. But it was nice to have the whole Ori thing wrapped up, since they left it hanging at the end of the series.

Never finished Kotor1, but the game I started I picked female. Kotor2 I was always female. I tried to play as male to see the other options, like w/Handmaiden, but then hubby played the game and I watched him play instead... I don't mind a male chr. and have used one many times in many games, but I tend to prefer playing the same gender as myself, if given a choice.

Sounds like what hubby was dealing with before the move. We were on the border of Morgan Hill and he had go up to Redwood City/San Carlos border 3-5 times a week, along with other far-flung Bay Area spots. It was, as they say, where the work was. It was only the recent housing crunch that let us buy and move up here, even if we did have to downsize a bit. Our families are mostly here, too.

Considering how much we pay the Feds every year, I'm not exactly jumping in anticipation over their piddly "rebate." But I suppose, assuming we get one, it'll go into our savings account, which we're trying to rebuild up again after buying this house. Altho, remodeling the kitchen sounds like a fine idea, too ... but nah, not this year.

True enough that we still generally have pretty cheap gas compared to other countries. But I think in any country, if anything has a fairly noticeable impact on your budget, where you can't easily adjust to accommodate it, you have a "right" to complain. This kind of rapid rise in price at the pump hurts a lot of people - even in the US. Especially in areas - in any country - where housing/rent/insurances etc. vs. income have so many people on very tight budgets already. That said, anyone obsessed with gas-hungry vanity vehicles when they don't actually need such a vehicle (SUV's etc....)... and could afford to get a more efficient vehicle (I know many can't right away...), I don't have much sympathy. I hate hubby's van, but he needs it for work (he moves huge loads of servers and other bulky equipment fairly often). We moved just in time - hopefully even w/the gas prices, with his reduced driving mileage, it'll be better than before, budget wise. Me, I hardly drive at all. I'd like a more efficient car (my '98 Legacy wagon only gets about 22mpg), but on average I only fill up my tank once a month or so - sometimes less. So I figure it can wait till our budget isn't so tight. Just for fun, here's a picture of a gas station from Feb. 2, 2008. The same exact station, last time I filled up a couple weeks ago, was $4.11 for the middle unleaded fuel. 70 cents in 2.5 months. It's probably gone up a little more now, even since that last time. Heh.

Oh, no, I didn't mean there was anything wrong with what's in your post. Only that my own personal words would be too strong. Most of it would never get past the filters.

If I turned all that pink blue, I'd like it a lot. Love the simple design ... just color preference.

Hehe...my experience is the complete opposite, w/'everyone' hating .wmv and not using it. But fine, fine, I added .wmv to the list.

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Heh, yeah, when I was 15/16 I spent more time at my boyfriend's apt. & his mom than my parents house.

What you're calling a griddle/sandwich press thing - is that anything like those 'lean mean grilling machines' (or their knockoffs)? If yes, yeah, they're pretty cool for electric cooking devices. You can toss meats/burgers or vegies or whatever in them, close the lid, and in 8-10 minutes they're done. If not, then, well, try one out. An electric wok or fry-pan of some kind would be a must for me, if I had no actual stove top range. Only problem is finding a good one - a lot of the cheaper ones break easily or start to lose their high-heat capabilities fast (their heating elements or plugs don't seem well protected), but this one on Amazon is rated pretty high by viewers. Never tired it personally tho. My mother loved those rectangular electric skillets. You could either use it to quick fry some eggs or cook pancakes on, or toss chicken, rice, vegies, liquid etc in it, cover it, and it'd be kinda like using an oven to make an all-in-one casserole/pan-dish. But again, you have to research them a bit, since many cheaper ones are just that ... cheap.

Get Smart, 2nd trailer: I don't know if it'll be a good movie or not, but the first 45 seconds of that trailer had me rolling.

1 - 4 2 - 9 3 - 11 4 - 16 5 - 17 6 - 18 7 - 25 8 - 28 9 - 29 10 - 30 11 - 34 12 - 37 13 - 43 14 - 38 15 - 14 16 - 15

It wasn't a disagreeable situation like that, but I had to do pretty much the same thing when I was in grade school when my dad got MS. Not fun for anyone...but it certainly doesn't sound fair to put you in that situation with someone you barely know. Glad you have a friends you can hide at out for relief.

Normally I'd agree 100% with that, but I had my hearing tested not long ago (along w/a lot of other stuff...). Which is how I know about my average hearing 'loss' in that small frequency range and the still above-average hearing ability in many higher and lower ranges. If you poked your eardrum, you'd know it. Maybe some people have ear canals that are more shallow than mine or something, increasing their risk w/Qtips. I think mine are pretty far back there.

It's fun, though it is harder than it looks. I always thought it looked pretty hard to begin with...but it'd be so cool to forge your own sword or something. :D My only real hobby is still photography ... doesn't even matter if I ever become 'great' at it - there's something just so addictive about looking at the world through a lens. I saw a documentary about a Nat. Geo. photographer - when he was shooting a rodeo event, he had some guy who followed him everywhere, holding on the to back of his shirt, to pull him out of danger in case he (the photographer) was getting too close to the kicking horses etc. Because when you're obsessed with looking through the camera, you tend to become oblivious to anything not in the frame of the photo. I love that sensation...although, since I have no one to hold the back of my shirt for me, I think I'll avoid rodeo photo-shoots....

I'm already there. Well, almost. Even us middle-aged fogies have to decompress and play.

Oh, look, it's a cat on my desktop! What a shocker!

Made some burgers, going to watch some CSI:NY on the braindrain device.