Topic: THE DAY BEFORE TOMORROW (Read 16809 times)

bk · « **Reply #180 on:** November 22, 2008, 06:57:50 PM »

If I go to the Studio Cafe, I'm having drumettes and a salad. If I don't, I have no clew WHAT I'm having. I might like some pasta with red sauce, but from where? I might like - oh, I don't know - I just want food in my gaping maw pronto.

bk · « **Reply #181 on:** November 22, 2008, 06:58:03 PM »

Well, no one can say we didn't get to page seven.

bk · « **Reply #182 on:** November 22, 2008, 06:58:11 PM »

Will we never get to page eight?

Jane · « **Reply #183 on:** November 22, 2008, 07:00:30 PM »

Bruce, SAFE & EASY TRAVEL VIBES TOMORROW!!

George · « **Reply #184 on:** November 22, 2008, 07:03:12 PM »

I'm back from reharsal ahd have just watched the latest "Grey's Anatomy." Now, I'mwatching last night's "Ghost Whisperer."

That is all.

Jane · « **Reply #185 on:** November 22, 2008, 07:06:55 PM »

I forgot to mention, I really enjoyed last nights episode of ATLANTIS. Did anyone watch it?

'night

JMK · « **Reply #186 on:** November 22, 2008, 07:56:15 PM »

I have been E&T most of the day as I had to play the most interminable funeral service EVER. OK, I get it, people want to honor someone's life and all that, but by the time we have the TWELFTH or THIRTEENTH family member and/or neighbor stand up to deliver a 10 minute monologue, you just want to SCREAM. Other than that, it was a great afternoon.

JMK · « **Reply #187 on:** November 22, 2008, 07:57:53 PM »

Zach is doing quite well with his new kit. We actually did consider a digital set, but didn't get it for a number of reasons. First of all, every pro drummer I know who has one has said the "touch" is radically different from an "acoustic" kit (for want of a better term), especially with regard to rolls. Also, even the cheapest digital kit I could find was several hundred dollars more than I spent for this very nice kit that has all new Evans drum heads and, most importantly, SILENCER PADS.

JMK · « **Reply #188 on:** November 22, 2008, 07:59:43 PM »

Re: the funeral. We had already sat through probably over an hour of reminscences when the minister stood up and positively bounded to the lectern. I could tell he was hoping it was all over. At which point the family member in charge called out, "I think we only have four or five more. Is that OK?" Like the minister was going to say, "No." (I would have).

Matt H. · « **Reply #189 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:04:17 PM »

Quote from: bk on November 22, 2008, 03:35:57 PM

Very anxious to hear about the transfer of White Dog - the DVD cannot come soon enough for me and will, in fact, hopefully be waiting for me upon my return.

You will be pleased. It looks beautiful: sharp, very clean, accurate fleshtones.

Matt H. · « **Reply #190 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:06:43 PM »

Quote from: JRand58 on November 22, 2008, 04:51:56 PM

I don't have MGM HD on my system yet....but it sounds interesting. Is it a Turner service?

No, not at all.

Laura · « **Reply #191 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:09:12 PM »

I've been to funerals where no one had an amusing tale.

Matt H. · « **Reply #192 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:10:39 PM »

I did begin my evening with WHITE DOG. I enjoyed the film, very visceral and, of course, an eye-opener that such things actually exist (dogs trained to attack non-white races). Paul Winfield gives his usual great performance.

Matt H. · « **Reply #193 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:13:36 PM »

The bonus features are skimpy (but this is a Criterion "budget" release at $29.95 instead of $39.95). There's one excellent 44 minute set of interviews with co-writer Curtis Hanson, the film's producer, and Fuller's widow who has a small part in the movie. I really enjoyed their various tales of knowing and working with Fuller.

There are also a couple of step through galleries (one has text with the pictures; the other is just photos). And the usual Criterion booklet.

Matt H. · « **Reply #194 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:15:18 PM »

I got INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL on Blu-ray today (on sale at Amazon), so I'm giving my review copy of the sDVD to a friend and I watched the Blu-ray tonight. Terrific sharpness and better color on the Blu-ray, of course. It also had a Dolby TrueHD soundtrack which is very enjoyable for this movie.

Matt H. · « **Reply #195 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:16:42 PM »

My Little Rascals set came today, too, and if I get a chance tomorrow, I'll watch some of them. That will be certain to bring back my childhood instantly.

Matt H. · « **Reply #196 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:18:10 PM »

My work disc for tomorrow is the Blu-ray of Vince Vaughn's holiday movie from last year - FRED CLAUS. I never saw it, so it should be OK fun. (I think it got OK reviews if I'm remembering correctly). There are a fairly long list of bonus features, so it may take most of the day for me to get through everything with it tomorrow.

vixmom · « **Reply #197 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:26:57 PM »

It's been a loooong couple of days...

bk · « **Reply #198 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:31:15 PM »

I will say that White Dog is my favorite Fuller film - in fact, I think it's brilliant. I've never seen a good-looking copy of it (( taped it off the old Z Channel and that's all I've ever seen), so this is going to be a real treat for me, and I'll write about it extensively, I have no doubt.

bk · « **Reply #199 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:32:13 PM »

Went to the Studio Cafe and had my usual - split an order of drumettes, a barbecue chicken sandwich (which just seems to get bigger and bigger every time I go there), and a teeny side salad. Very filling and it was all excellent.

vixmom · « **Reply #200 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:33:34 PM »

Here is Vixdad's take on how last Friday's doctor's appointment went....

Quote

We were scheduled in double-quick time for a visit with an Oncologist at Long Island Jewish, a hospital with a good reputation for oncological science. This is where the merely nerve-shredding business was taken to new lengths in human mental torture.

First, the appointment was moved from the afternoon to 9:30 am. Then the hospital turned out to be under renovation and the place looked like a bomb had hit it. We abandoned our car to a valet and went into the oncological building to ask for the doctor. We were, of course, in the wrong part of the bloody place, which everyone was able to tell us straight away, but no-one seemed to know where the right place was, exactly. We got directions, eventually, which led us in a great circle.

Mrs Stevie, ever the practical one, called the doctor's receptionist, who proved to have a grasp of the hospital's geography easily the equal of ours, which is to say that she knew where she was but couldn't recognize where we were. We finally got that sorted out and arrived in good time for the appointment.

Which is when we met Chauncy, who was to prove himself a complete waste of about three bux worth of chemicals and completely devoid of an I.Q.

His first act of anti-patient peace-of-mind terrorism was to produce a pad of forms containing no less than eight sheets of drivel that the doctor needed filling out, then explaining how to do that in an almost perfect imitation of Dustin Hoffman's brilliant portrayal of "Mumbles" in the movie Dick Tracy1. He must have spent ten seconds on the entire exposition. Mrs Stevie, naturally, became quite hostile that she was asked to fill in her name and nothing else on four sheets of paper, something the otherwise idle receptionist could have done while we were trying to find the bloody place. To add insult to more insult, Chauncy the Waste of Air couldn't get our surname right. A name with four letters, only three of them different, and with an obvious single syllable pronunciation I might add. Still, it would soon be over and we would know the worst.

Or not.

We were shown into an examination room at 10:30, fully one hour later than "the only time the doctor could fit us in", where we waited another half hour before the great man put in an appearance.

Understand that we sympathized with the problems that an emergency operation that afternoon had caused the staff. We just can't understand why we were completely ignored and kept in the dark as to what the fbleepck was going on and when we might actually see someone with a medical qualification.

Eventually the doctor showed up and did a couple of exploratory examinations. He then told Mrs Stevie that she was young to be getting this form of cancer, that she was extremely healthy, had none of the usual risk factors for the disease2 and that we had caught the disease early. The prognosis was therefore extremely good and the standard of care would be six weeks of radiation and chemotherapy, with surgery probably not needed unless a PET scan showed otherwise. He was quite definite that he wanted the PET scan to be done "today or tomorrow"3.

We left the office and went back to reception, where we asked the receptionist to organize getting permission from the insurance company to do the test. She refused. Mrs Stevie pointed out that the doctor had been quite specific. She said that we had to get our GP to sort it out. A few minutes on the phone resolved the issue - we had spoken of setting up a "referral" when what was needed was an "approval". The receptionist got quite snippy over the fact that we had a less-than-perfect grasp of the jargon of her field of expertise - medical paper pushing. She summoned Chauncy, the Complete Waste of Skin.

Chauncy listened to about two words of the request before going through all the same strategies to avoid doing what was needed that the receptionist had used. Each one was fielded and returned by Mrs Stevie, a far more fiendish disputant than this Chauncy moron had ever met. He finally asked us to have a seat and disappeared upstairs, ostensibly to do what was required. He mispronounced our name again, just for laughs.

By now it was nearly lunchtime, and that brought on two concerns. Firstly, Mrs Stevie hadn't eaten since the day before and was getting severely squirrelly due to blood sugar levels dipping south of healthy. Then there was the certain knowledge that Chauncy Fbleepckwit was almost certainly near his own lunch-break, which would be an ideal way to bust our balls again.

I waited 40 minutes more before I called my insurance company and began asking them if the forms required had been received (they hadn't4) and how I could get the process moving from my end. I did this at the top of my voice in the (vain) hope that one of the stupid cows sitting behind the reception desk would get a clue and intervene. I should add that for the last hour we had been the only other people in the place. Naturally, neither one did intervene, but between me and Mrs Stevie we did get the insurance company to fax the forms required to Chauncy Lackabrain's office. They also said that the whole process should have taken no more than 15 minutes, which we kinda knew since Mrs Stevie had had a number of tests organized that week by someone getting on a computer and spending time being helpful instead of being a complete twbleept. Within five minutes, Chauncy Fbleepace had reappeared waving the form in question, mispronouncing our surname yet again, claiming it was all sorted out, and so we left that benighted hole.

Mrs Stevie was fit to spit nails, and said that she had little faith that an operation that couldn't organize a trivial paperwork exchange or muster staff who could pronounce her name would be competent to cure the condition she had. I had to agreee with her. Since she was feeling down I decided to take her to the California Pizza Kitchen for lunch.

On the way there, she called the insurance company and discovered that despite us having done everything but fill in the forms ourselves, and despite the doctor ordering the PET scan be performed "today or tomorrow5" Chauncy Fbleepckhead hadn't actually faxed through the paperwork. Mrs Stevie called him, and in a conversation that escalated until she was literally screaming down the phone at this waste of skin she argued that yes, since it was her life they were discussing in fact he did have time to walk across the bloody office, write one six digit number on the paper he swore blind he had faxed and resend it.

Chauncy Lackabraincell opined that he didn't have to be spoken to in that fashion and threatened to get Deirdre, his supervisor, involved. I was astounded this poor excuse for a human being would be so stupid as to provide such a useful opening in a day in which he had so far done a grand total of nothing to help us out, and Mrs Stevie, of course, yelled that she would love to speak to his supervisor and that she not only welcomed the opportunity to speak to her, she demanded it. Chauncy Fbleepckbrain madly backpedaled and announced she wasn't there, but that on reflection he did have time to deal with this issue himself and would do so, now.

We ate a splendid meal6 and returned home. On the way, I suggested Mrs Stevie re-check the situation vis-à-vis the paperwork since I had no faith in the Idiot Chauncy.

As you might predict, the now fed and therefore calmer Mrs Stevie discovered that the paperwork had not arrived, at least, not as it had been specified and was either never received or sent with inadequate identification. Mrs Stevie went white with rage and began dialing. I spoke up:

"Don't bother calling Chauncy. He is just getting some sort of odd twisted pleasure from making you twist in the wind. Ask for Deer-dree" I said.

And that's what she did. She explained what had happened, pontificated on the smarts of a staff that claimed to be able to marshal the state of the art in medical help yet couldn't get one four letter, single syllable name right, and said outright that she had never been so shabbily treated in her life and had no confidence in the Doctor or his support team as a result.

For the first time that day, people from that hospital began reacting to her with some shred of human decency, and she was apologized to and assured that the problems were not typical and would be dealt with.

Mrs Stevie hung up and announced that the woman's name was, in fact, Deer-druh, not Deer-dree. I replied that since they hadn't got our name right I wasn't too bothered about a regional pronunciation difference in one of theirs.

The doctor's personal assistant then rang us back and said that he would now be dealing with Mrs Stevie personally. He had sorted out the paperwork and faxed it to the insurance company in the way that they asked him to, and as a result, no sooner was he off the line than the insurance company called with the news that the test was approved.

I was glad that someone had finally decided that just because it was Friday it was no reason to make the life of a patient any more miserable than the discovery of the potentially lethal condition that made them come to the hospital had. I do however have one remaining puzzle arising from this horseshirt that I cannot for the life of me reason out:

What in Azathoth's name did Chauncy the Fbleepckwit think he could possibly gain by his behavior?

Try as I might I cannot fathom a way in which he could come out of a day like that thinking he was somehow ahead, so why did he do it?

vixmom · « **Reply #201 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:43:56 PM »

yesterday's appointment was much much different - I was cheerfully greeted immediately upon entering the building, which was clearly signposted and provided priority parking for RO patients.

I was offered beverage with the choices of several types of coffee, a selection of teas or hot chocolate

I was offered cookies from another selection . The waiting room was comfortably furnished with comfy chairs and TV and dozens of magazines

The staff was pleasant, the paperwork was already completed and my wait time was non existant. The RN explained all the procedures to me and even showed me a video of the procedure.

She then provided me with two books explaining the procedures and side effects, a diary for recording medications symptoms, questions etc and several papers full of information of local free and low cost resources for cancer patients and their families.

The doctor then came in and performed a complete examination and tehn HE explained all the procedures again in detail. In all I was there 2 1/2 hours and was being given information the entire time.

The most important words he said, IMHO, were contained in this one sentence:

"This is absolutely curable"

[/b]

FJL · « **Reply #202 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:52:12 PM »

Wonderful news, vixmom.

FJL · « **Reply #203 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:53:16 PM »

I do wish unemployment-vibes on the likes of said Chauncy if he indeed was playing such games. Such mean-spirited behavior should be some sort of malpractice, or at least intentional infliction of emotional harm.

FJL · « **Reply #204 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:54:14 PM »

Continued love and hugs to the vixfamily

Tomovoz · « **Reply #205 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:55:31 PM »

"This is absolutely curable"
[/b]

Hugs for Vixmom.

JoseSPiano · « **Reply #206 on:** November 22, 2008, 08:55:52 PM »

DR vixmom - WOW! and WHEW!

vixmom · « **Reply #207 on:** November 22, 2008, 09:01:48 PM »

http://www.northshorelij.com/workfiles/radonc/radmednewsFall08.pdf

My Doctor....

This location, I have just seen, just opened up in August... it is 7 miles and 15 minutes from home as opposed to 30 miles and an hour for the other location where we were treated so shabbily

vixmom · « **Reply #208 on:** November 22, 2008, 09:05:06 PM »

I went to work after the doctor's visit feeling as if a weight had been lifted from my heart --

I set up my appointments and referrals for the medical oncologist and gastro Docs and did some work

Then I drove to my mom's collected the Vixter and her galpals and off to the theatre (movie that is)

vixmom · « **Reply #209 on:** November 22, 2008, 09:18:04 PM »

While I was (and still am ) opposed to the building of the Mall I must say that teh movie theater is beautiful!!!

There is sufficient space between rows for you to strecth out you legs without accidently kicking the seat in front of you - in fact (I didn't try it, of course) but I think it would be nigh on to impossible for someone under 6'8" to intentioanally kick the seat in front of them while sitting down.

The entire theatre is stadium seating and chairs have high backs, their own arms (you are not fighting for the arm rest with your neighbor) and luxuriously well padded

We arrived a half hour early for the sold out show and found that some frieddsn we were meeting had arrived an hour early and had staked out the best seats in the house for us - dead cente, center.

The girls looooooooooooooooved the movie

POSSIBLE SPOILERScTHOUGH I AM NOT REALLY TALKING STORY POINTS HERE
YUIOIPOjlskjdoiepok;lkcvasop[ co [objai-00v[] It was,,, okay. The makeup on a couple of the main characters (particularly Edward and Carlisle) was ridiculous. I could have done a better job. I found the overacting in some scenes laughable and a number of the the CGI effects were so false looking that they were distracting. oirjkvcosiopkfpor-0qw9kvls;'vl;';;;v'vrtpoipocopd[cope][cpqpc[]qpc[]p][qp[]fcpvfEND POSSIBLE SPOILERS

News:

Author Topic: THE DAY BEFORE TOMORROW (Read 16809 times)

FJL

FJL

FJL