Stress Symptoms

I gotta take Hotness to the doctor today for an appointment.
She's been feeling under the weather, much more so than I was when I had the cold I just got over. We're hoping it's nothing to serious (as in the flu, or particularly H1N1) so we'll see.

Anyway, it got me to thinking about some stuff in my life right now and I thought I'd talk about them briefly.

Stress does a wicked number on your health in more ways than you can imagine.
When I was selling aquarium fish (many years ago) we always informed customers about the many factors that can cause stress in the fish tank environment and how to try and eliminate them for the overall health of the fish inside.

The same thing applies to us humans.
We have sources of stress on many, many different levels coming at us at all times.
Not all of it is bad, but constant repetitive stress can really wear you down after a while.

About 8 or 9 years ago I started having trouble with my sinuses. I wasn't having infections or anything like that, but I was having difficulty clearing my nose when I blew it into a tissue. It never seemed to work and only got worse as the years continued. I even went to the doctor to try and see what the problem was, but he couldn't determine a cause so it went on without any remedy.
Occasionally I'd take an over-the-counter allergy or sinus pill to help alleviate the symptoms, but they always returned.
At night, I'd have difficulty breathing and wouldn't get a full, restful night's sleep. In the morning I'd wake up barely able to breath through my nose and would spend a good portion of my morning trying to blow it out so I could breath a little.

I thought I may be allergic to the cat, but I never had been before and the symptoms never got drastically worse when I was around the cat.

Then, about 4 or 5 years ago I started having trouble with my stomach. At least once (and quite often twice) a week I'd have an upset stomach.
My tummy would cramp up and I'd have to go. It was not comfortable in the least.
The medical term for this would be called "irritable bowel syndrome". No real way to stop it, it just happens and people have to deal with it for the rest of their lives.

Well a funny thing has happened in the last couple of months.
I haven't had one instance of an 'irritable bowel' at all.
And around the middle of November my sinus started to clear up. I've been able to breath clearly at night, and when I blow my nose... it clears out the junk and I can breath.

What have I been doing in the last two months to make such an improvement to my health?
Nothing, quite literally.
I was laid off two months ago and in these past two months, my body has started to recover from stress I was subjecting it to at a job that I wasn't enjoying.

When my sinuses started acting up, I had just moved into "Will Call / shipping". I was there for about a year or two before moving into sales. Then in the last 4 or 5 years of being in sales and having to deal with customers, vendors, and even some co-workers my stomach started acting up.

When I was let go from my job, my tummy troubles ceased.... practically overnight.
My sinuses took a little while longer to start to clear, but they have been for the last 2 or 3 weeks and I can not only breath easier but I actually feel a lot better than I have in recent years.

You'd think that being unemployed would add more stress and make my body react even worse, but I've really been more relaxed than I ever have been in a long while.
I'm looking for work, but I'm only looking for things I seriously want to do. Not just the first thing that comes along.
I'm not about to subject myself anytime soon to the same stress levels I had been before.

Now, if I would just get my butt into the gym.........

Investments For Suckers

Remember these?

Some of my favorite lines from this clip:
Girl: "... and if the fad ever dies out..."
Boy: "Which we all know will NEVER happen!"

Woman: "... and I found him. And he's uncut...."


Here's a funny article about them as well.



Ha ha ha!!!
Good thing I'm investing in comic books. I'll never have to worry about losing money on them. They're a sure bet to my financial future!

Adopt A Bunny

This economic crunch is really affecting all levels of society in our country.
No one is immune (except for maybe those that caused it in the first place).

Case in point:
83-year old Hugh Hefner has to lay off staff of his multi-million dollar empire as it struggles to cope during the global economic turmoil or face bankruptcy.
Hefner has already said he won't be throwing any more wild parties in an effort to cut down on costs, but now the famed bunnies will soon be looking for new homes.

So, with many of them needing a place to stay I propose an Adopt-A-Bunny plan to keep them from wandering the streets.

Who's willing to help out?

Now It's A "Bumper Crop"?!?

Not long ago (late July in fact) we were being told that so much of America's farming heartland was flooded and crops were destroyed. We were going to face big increases in costs at the grocery store, not only because of higher fuel prices (to transport the food) but because there would be less of it to go around since so many of the crops were damaged.

This would affect meat, as animals would have to be slaughtered so compensate for the increasing food costs to growers. Thus, meat and poultry would go down a little after saturating the market, and then take a sharp increase.

Oh, but wait! Not two weeks later they're telling us that we going to have a bumper crop of soybeans and corn. Food shortage and price increases averted. Yay!
What? Food isn't going to go down now? Oh, because food buyers already based their costs on the 'expected' food shortages and susequent increases, so they are locked in on contracts with higher prices.
In other words, we're going to pay more because they already raised the prices and won't back down now.

So really, where's the good news in this?
We're already getting ass-raped at the gas pump, even though oil producers assure us that "they're doing everything they can to cut costs" while still reporting the biggest quarterly profits in years.
Now food retailers are going to get their fair share because not only is fuel more expensive but they are already paying higher prices based on "ESTIMATED INCREASES" that they got locked into contracts with their suppliers even though those costs aren't going to be as high as expected.

A few years back, the price of butter rose dramatically during the Holiday season. Shoppers were feeling the pinch and the news reported that it was due to "dairy producers not realizing the expected increase of usage, so they had cut back production and now supplies were short".
Really? Butter rose in price at the very peak of when people do most of their baking and the producers didn't plan for it? Are you kidding me?
If you haven't noticed, those prices STILL haven't come down yet. Even though there's been plenty of time to adjust for consumer consumption. Butter is still expensive.

Gas prices were over $4.50/gal and now that they dropped were happy to pay $3.99/gal.
Food prices will rise, even though expected costs won't be as much as they planned for.
Utilities have increased because they had to recover from all the storm damage a year ago, but never re-adjusted afterwards.

Which goes to show you that once a precedent has been set, we're expected to jus deal with it.
Welcome to the new future.

Make It Stop

So everybody's talking about the high cost of living nowadays.
I'm not going to go on a big rant, but I just wanted to get it off my chest.

We've seen the prices climbing at the pump, the grocery store, and pretty much anywhere you buy anything.
Now to add insult to injury, Dow Chemical is increasing prices on all their products up to 20% by next week. Thanks for the warning, fellas.
I hope everyone has enough diapers, detergents, and pretty much everything that we use on a daily basis 'cause this is going to hurt a little.

(Note to self: Better pick up some lube before THAT goes up in price next week!)
But the cost of living isn't going up as much as we seem to think, isn't that what the government is telling us?

And we can't blame the oil executives. After all, they're doing everything they can to rape us blind... er, help us in this time of economic crisis.

It makes this scene from "Network" all that much more appropriate:

Well... I stop complaining now.

Regular posting of funny stuff to follow soon.