May 2021 archive

11
May
2021

I am continuing to fix the state’s screw-up.

categories: personal; word count: 364 words

For some reason, our local HHSC claimed to have “lost” the good cause forms that have been on file with Bub and Monster’s child support cases since 2014 (Monster’s had one since 2007, but a social worker took the good cause indicator off of his case without telling me in 2014). I was able to contact a customer care representative at the child support office who was perplexed that they were claiming to have lost the forms, because he stated that the good cause forms are referred with the rest of the case each time that HHSC’s automated computer systems mistakenly refer the cases to be enforced. He was able to send me the good cause waiver that the child support office has on file, which I sent to HHSC both by e-mail and as a change request, especially since he indicated that it could be e-mailed and I wanted to expedite things as far as I possibly could. At some point after that, though, family violence indicators were put on the cases as they appear to be pending closure, which means that customer care representatives working at the child support office can not see a lot of the information relating to the cases that they could once see. So I’m waiting on them to… liaison with HHSC about why these cases continue to be referred, and attempts made at working them, in spite of the fact that working either case poses safety issues to us. The state office has now gotten in on this as well, although it also appears that my local office is continuing to do work trying to figure out why these cases continue to be referred for enforcement and why folks are mysteriously “losing” documents.

The last time that this happened was in 2014, and it resulted in one case actually briefly being worked to the point of wage garnishment. I think I’ve mentioned that somewhere in here before, but the person in question… retaliated when they found out that their pay had been garnished, quit their job violently, and fled the country over it for as long as they could stay there. My only regret was that he could not stay longer.

09
May
2021

We are eventually going to finish this game.

categories: RPGs; word count: 372 words

So Bub and I actually started Pokemon: Sword with the intent of finishing it.

The last time we started it, we didn’t get that far, and when I had to fix our Nintendo Switch I lost our save file for… whatever reason. Luckily though, we hadn’t even gotten that far, so it wasn’t that big of a deal — we just had to pick it back up and resume playing, which we eventually did. Predictably, Bub chose the Fire starter as our introductory Pokemon, which I had a feeling he was going to do anyway since he generally does choose Fire starters. A friend of mine was nice enough to trade the boys their two favorite Pokemon (Growlithe, Meowth… although they like Arcanine and Persian too for obvious reasons), and I immediately put those into our party with the intent to level them up. I also have a Vulpix in there that I eventually want to evolve to Ninetales, so we are a bit Fire-type loaded, but I’ll make substitutions as needed. Like when we get to the Water Gym, I know for a fact that we’re only going to have our Fire starter in there… the rest of the Fire-types that we have are going to go back into the box and wait until we’re done. Bub shouldn’t mind.

Since I’m running a classic Meowth and not a Galan Meowth, which he doesn’t like, he shouldn’t mind.

I also want to get a Galan Vulpix for myself for entirely personal reasons, finding it fascinating and pretty.

I try not to “load us up” with a lot of games that we’re playing that… might not get completed due to the number of games that we’re playing, but I felt like I had to make an exception for this because it’s Pokemon. I’ve already pre-ordered the remakes of Diamond and Pearl for the boys that seem like they’re coming out later this year, and I got them the Arceus game as well. I’ll eventually remember the names of the remakes (Brilliant Diamond? Shining Pearl?) as launch date gets closer. And I pre-ordered them Pokemon Snap months ago, which should actually be shipping soon now that it’s been released. It’s just their kind of game.

08
May
2021

This post is brought to you by prednisone.

categories: personal; word count: 259 words

So I am on my third antibiotic for this wound of mine that will not go away. Augmentin did absolutely nothing, and fluconazole was a laugh. Now I am on fifteen days of Omnicef, which is only possible to take being on 60mg prednisone because of the severity of headaches and stomach troubles that came with it. I was seriously about to throw in the towel and stop taking Omnicef were it not for prednisone, because I was having headaches so bad that Fioricet didn’t help at all and stomach troubles so bad that I could not eat. Strangely enough, prednisone has ameliorated all of that and made taking the antibiotic tolerable. I know that it’s used as palliative care with cancer patients to help them eat and… make some of the side effects of cancer go away (gee, how would I know something like that?), so I figured that it was worth a shot in my case since I have some prednisone stockpiled here at the house. And I was completely correct guessing…

I don’t feel 100%, but I can get out of bed, eat as needed, and do things. I will gladly take that as a win.

I do think that I’m going to warn my doctors about this going forward, because it’s not tenable to have to take prednisone just to take an antibiotic. Omnicef may be something that I am not tolerant of, that I can not tolerate. And that’s okay. As long as we know about it we can work around it, prescribing different things.

07
May
2021

In a move that surprises almost no one…

categories: consoles; word count: 161 words

Sony has gone back on closing the PlayStation Store for the PS3 and Vita.

On one hand, this surprises me — they went back on this. On the other hand, it doesn’t, because it would have been a poor business move for them to block people out of the PlayStation Store who were still playing those consoles. It was just a matter of seeing how thoroughly Sony wanted to shoot themselves in the foot alienating themselves from their older player base, because both of those consoles are still being played (or else there wouldn’t have been the uprising that there was over them stating that they would close the PlayStation Store for them). They’re still going to close the PlayStation Store to the PSP console, but hey. A lot of people can play PSP games on the Vita, so that isn’t and won’t be a complete loss. I can deal with that.

Clearly, no one comes between a Bub and his game.

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