Yesterday afternoon, I went with my friends Joe J. and Jean J. (his mom) to a doctor's apppointment Joe had. He's been suffering with "new daily persistent headaches" of unknown origin since May. It's really frustrating for him, and for everyone who loves him, to see him going through this. It's hard enough that he lost his sight and hearing, and ability to walk, to a nervous-system disorder that no specialists have ever been able to identify. The various bouts of chronic pain he's had over the years (ankle, back, abdomen, and now headaches) are actually worse than the other things he's gone through, because the pain impacts his quality of life in a way that the other things didn't.

Long story less long: his body acclimated to the pain med he was injected with in June, and several times thereafter. It went from keeping him headache-free for ten days (the first time he had the injections) to not even lasting one day before the pain returned. So today, a different treatment was tried. He got injections of botox in various places in the forehead, sides of the head, and back of the head, since his headaches have manifested in any or all of those places over time. This treatment is supposed to take full effect in one or two weeks, but it's also supposed to last for three months. Here's hoping that it lasts that long (given his body's tendency to build up a tolerance to other pain treatments he's tried in the past). The good news is, his headache was reduced significantly by the time he left the doctor's office. It wasn't entirely gone, but hey -- improvement is always a good thing. Here's praying that the improvement continues.

In the "we like geek toys" category, there's this offering: Microsoft will be releasing new versions of Zune in November: a larger 80GB model, and two flash models of sizes 4GB and 8GB. However, not only will the original 30GB model continue to exist, but there will be a firmware update that will give it all the capabilities of the soon-to-be-released models. Accessories currently listed on zune.net will fit all the models of the device.

So, I'm all happy -- in a month, I'll get the equivalent of an upgraded device, without having to actually BUY a new device. Everything the new devices will be able to do, the original devices will do, as well. Tech-toy fans can find out what the new capabilities are by heading over to this writeup.

And now that I've waited until past midnight, specifically because the news release regarding the device upgrade was supposed to be made public at 12 AM, I'm going to try and get some shuteye.

Update: EEEEEK... the drawback of the weather being nice enough to keep the windows open is that critters that belong Outside sometimes sneak Inside. A little while ago, Captain and Stanley were awfully interested in the region between the open computer-room-door and the wall. And when I say "interested", I mean they were EXTREMELY fixated on that area, staring, pawing, mrrrrping and meowing at it. I've had cats long enough to know what that behavior means: we probably had a guest with six or more legs. Sure enough, there was a cricket hiding behind the door. I took my sneaker and made it an ex-cricket, disposed of it in the toilet, then thanked the kitties for finding it for me.

Of course, now my bug-phobia is belatedly kicking in and I'm WIDE awake. So much for that shuteye. Who needs sleep anyway?