Getting my covid booster and flu shot this afternoon.

1: probably too early for the flu shot. I still have a bruise from my COVID shot. I don't understand what happened. It did sting a bit about 15 minutes after the shot.

Don't let her keep you from your dreams peep. Go get the flu shot. I'm getting mine next week.

3: Thanks for the support, Moby!

You should write a book.

2. Last year the walk in centre near us was giving both at the same time. This year they're not offering the flu shots. I suspect you're right that they think it's too early, But it's mildly annoying.

Now I'm (very slightly) annoyed that I got my flu shot at a suboptimal time, without knowing that it was suboptimal. (a few weeks ago). Oh, well, at least I got one.

In my state they are telling everyone to get a flu shot right away, that it's hit earlier than usual.

Yeah. The pediatrician says not to wait.

L'shana tova to all who observe, and also to anyone whose past 12 months have been as completely absurd as mine have. (I just cleaned out the fridge-- hopefully not literally a year's worth of absurdity and poor planning, but it was a pretty epic mess. I did find a can of tasty beer buried in dead parsley.)

I figured they had so few vaccine takers in my beknighted state that the official policy was "What, they're in the store? Give em anything they'll take. Might not see them again."

That's probably part of it. I should stop asking my doctor if the CDC is still requiring me to wash my hands after I poop. It's not helping their view of the public.

Stupid CDC, don't they know E Coli is endemic now?

I remember by office mate who was from Pakistan and how he explained that Hepatitis A was just a thing you got from time to time.

I got 2 Pfizer initially and was sick for 2 days after the 2nd shot. When I got my Moderna booster 8 months later, I just felt really sleepy.

The bivalent booster wasn't like #2, but I definitely felt the effects more than with my OW booster. I think some of the reactogenicity was related to administration. I had a bruise afterwards, but I had a headache and felt kind of woozy. Both Tim and I had to rest. I would not have wanted to get both at the same time.

I've heard that some vaccine experts get 2 flu shots in a season, but I'm trying to figure out how. Get one on their insurance and then go get another for cash or one at work and another through insurance at a pharmacy. The pharmacy can look at the immunization registry and see that I already had one that season. I suppose I could go to NH to get a 2nd.

Just got shot (twice) and now waiting out my 15 minutes.

I never got my 15 minutes of fame, but I've had several 15 minutes of waiting. Probably healthier for the mind and body.

I stopped waiting after the first two.

I had lost at least half a day for every time. Never more than a full day though.

5: Odd you should mention this - I've been polling my family on what I should title my memoirs.

A) Cruel and Unusual: the peep story

or

B) Not That Funny: the chronicles of a would-be comedian.

My stepdaughter voted for A, but my wife is leaning towards B.

19: That's a really long time to sit in a CVS.

20: "Moby Hick: The supportive genius, as told by peep."

Made it through the hurricane unscathed but most of my province wasn't so lucky. PEI is in horrible shape as are SWern parts of NL.

They finally opened up boosters for those 18-70 last week so I guess I need to get that.

Oh I got to see a hydrobatidae today offshore! Blown in by the storm.

We had a very small earthquake yesterday.

23: glad you and your house made it through the hurricane.

I didn't realize it hit Canada that hard. Glad you were at least let off lightly.

Yeah, the Maritimes got hammered. They're not used to storms like this. Some of the pictures are incredible.

I guess Newfoundland isn't technically considered part of the Maritimes. There are similar pictures further south, though. Glad to hear hydrobatidae got through it okay.

My specific area does have somewhat similar storms - rain and winds over 100 km. In general we're a windy and rainy part of the world (see also Wreckhouse NL). But the storm hit while the leaves were on the trees, came from all directions (rather than our prevailing directions) and the storm serge was pretty high.

The northshore of PEI is another really hard hit area - https://twitter.com/jwhittaltwn/status/1573671024071147520?s=21&t=xL2b9meAdiTrlNAyWNGFBA

Hi Pittsburgh! Moby and others, if you'd like to get a drink on Wednesday or Thursday (28 or 29), please let me know here or at my linked email. If that doesn't work out, if someone would recommend to me a quiet bar near CMU where I wouldn't feel uncomfortable having a drink by myself, I would appreciate it!

I can't do Thursday but Wednesday is good.

"Near CMU" would either be Oakland or Squirrel Hill. Depending on which side.

But the part of Squirrel Hill with bars is up a biggish hill.

Wednesday the 28th! Based on the map it looks like I'll be in either North Oakland or Squirrel Hill North most of the time.

1: I wouldn't recommend getting both shots at once. Two very sore arms and other things plausibly vaccine-related made for a pretty miserable night. I guess I was a little smug, because I had minimal reactions to the previous shots.

You probably should have waited to get the flu shot. I heard it's too early.

I left my work-backpack at home today. What a mess. Happy new year.

You can probably buy another backpack on campus.

After two and a half years of regularly driving between northern and southern California, I finally moved to southern California. Now I can spend years driving between parts of southern California.

39: Congratulations!

How is a flu shot like a pig's tail?

Other than the needle being shaped like a pig's tail?

39: Probably a climate plus on net! What part of that rich tapestry?

I'm now working remotely, so definitely a climate benefit there too, at least as a day to day calculation.

I'm living in apparently a border area between Burbank, Glendale, and LA. I keep finding out I'm in Burbank when I shop for things.

44 Hello neighbor! Are you in horse town?

Everything I know about Burbank I learned from watching Johnny Carson.

45: Yes! There's even stables behind the building next door.

Burbank is the best! Reasons:

1. Free parking, everywhere, all the time.
2. All Portos locations are a chaotic mess, but the one in Burbank is like, the second least terrible.
3. I ran into Mario Lopez, at the height of his Saved by the Bell fame, at the Media Center mall, shopping for pants.

Now you have to take up riding, and probably ice skating.

Maybe both at the same time.

I don't know if people have been following this, but the £ is plummeting. Now is the perfect time to buy an island in Scotland.

48 alone demands some sort of generalized theory of the Oxford comma.

1. Free parking, everywhere, all the time.

I will not bite. Bait is the mind-killer.

Yeah. Free parking either means you're subsidizing drivers or that the local economy is too bad for land to have real value.

Survived another year and had a great weekend in Pacific Grove and Monterey. Lots of delicious meals out, a quick trip to the aquarium (but short... it was a LOT of people) and a wonderful 40 mile round trip e-bike ride from Pacific Grove to Marina and back. I should have remembered to add sunscreen earlier, but we moisturized as soon as we got back to the room, which seems to have helped.

It was a nice physical challenge (I returned my bike at 50% charge) -- a nice step down from our original slightly more insane Monterey to Santa Cruz ride, with the return trip the next day. Something like that might work from somewhere central -- Marina to Santa Cruz round trip one day, then Marina to Monterey and back the next... but biking and packing all of the stuff for a second day for a hotel stay would have been ambitious. But our confidence level is up -- watch out world!

53, 54. I mean that the streets are unmetered. Much of the city is basically a commuter suburb, and the sparse permeation of public transportation in the area means that realistically, most of the residents need cars to get around. Metering the streets (as they do in nearby similar cities Glendale and Pasadena) just means that you're penalizing people who don't own or rent a garage space.

I admit being surprised that the part of downtown Burbank I've walked around so far seems in better shape for walking than, say, downtown San Jose. I parked in a garage, which indeed was free. It reminded me of the parking arrangements in some of the Bay Area peninsula towns. I didn't check for meters since the street parking was full.

"San Jose" is a real place?

58: I know the way.

54: Free Parking means you get all the money that people have paid into the pot as they go around the board.

60: Does not!

58: No one goes there. It's got too much parking.

My dad came to vivit for a month. I liked seeing him and spending time with him, he stayed longer than he usually does and I was worried about conflict, but it was fine. I love him but see his flaws, plus he was a lot worse at managing while I was growing up; so recognizing shared traits is a mixture of pleasure and something else. It was a nice feeling to be able to offer hospitality.
Also nice to have a guest who likes books, I feel like an anachronism for liking my library, so resonance there is pleasant. I'm not young and he's a lot older, he's taking pretty good care of himself but since I see him once a year, changes are noticeable, and worrying both for wanting him to be as well as possible as long as possible, also as harbingers of what 2050 will look like if I reach it.

I can sympathize. My parents have transitioned from "technically old, I guess, but strong and healthy" to "really very old", and it's a little grim looking at them and thinking "I have thirty years."

Yeah, it's rough. Before you know it, you're arranging medical-ish people to come by the house every day before you leave town and then finding out they cancelled half of them the next week.

I should probably price long-term care insurance, but if we're going to get nuked or go fascist, it seems like a waste of money.

I am sort of thinking of picking a moment when I'm in my early seventies or something, when I'm still perfectly competent, of handwriting myself a series of notes saying "You really should do whatever it is your children are telling you to do," and giving them to Sally and Newt to be strategically deployed when necessary.

I get the idea, but I'm perfectly capable of sending a message to myself to do something and ignoring it a few hours later. It's basically the first half hour of every morning.

46 Everything I know about Burbank I learned from watching Johnny Carson Rowan and Martin.

Being within driving distance of my parents without having to pack for a few days' stay is a big part of why I moved. My dad is tending to keep more of his appointments beyond the ones that his life clearly depend on (cancer treatments mainly), which is good.

But scheduling in the current state of the health care system is quite difficult. He's had a few appointments repeatedly rescheduled for months before finally happening. It's been difficult to keep him from just canceling after a while.

So, apparently a hunter went out into the field in Montana to shoot a wolf, found a dog instead, shot the dog, skinned the dog, and, because content is king, put up a video of the skinning.

This obviously reminds me of a Simpson's episode.

Since she only killed the one dog, you couldn't test if skinning them is like with cats.

My dad died 15 years ago today. September is a difficult month for me for a lot of reasons, and this is definitely one. It's far enough in the past that it's not, like, an aching wound, but it's still tough.

74: sympathy, teo. Hope you can still enjoy your birthday - though definitely somewhat jarring to have those 2 events so close together in the calendar.

I'm so sorry, Teo. I can't believe it's been 15 years.

Yes, that's rough. Sorry.

Thanks, guys.

My grandmother is dying, and I've flown down to FL to be with her in the hospice unit. We're most likely going to avoid a direct hit from the hurricane--it's predicted to hit the other coast, a little north of us. Tornadoes and flooding remain a concern, but at least her room is on the second floor and we're four miles inland from the coast.

This is not exactly how I wanted to spend my own birthday week, but I'm grateful I made it here before the storm.

I'm sorry and stay safe. It's good you got there in time.

My sympathies J,R and teo

My only Florida relative has already evacuated to Atlanta.

Sorry to hear that, JR.

So, meet up tonight at 7 at the Union Grill.

I'm like five minutes away. I'm dressed too disheveled for a consultant but not disheveled enough for an academic.

Maybe a sociologist.

Not a respected one.

NMM to Coolio. Suppose he's now in Gangsta's Paradise.

That's unexpected.

I didn't realize he was that much older than me.

Or that he was from Monessen.

Anyway, great to meet jms.

90: Same age as me

So, sibling (~37) just got diagnosed with adult onset epilepsy. Any cause to worry about me?

Only if you're an adult.

Yes, sorry, J Robot.

94: Probably not, although it's a bit more complicated than that. Apparently, most cases of epilepsy caused by genetic mutations we know about show up pretty early. It's not something I personally would worry about in the same circumstances.

Epilepsy is unconstitutional because of the 4th ammendment protection against search and seizure.

98: You're disbarred.

I always thought they'd get me for comingling of funds.

100: Aha! I tricked you into confessing!

J, that sounds awful. I'm so sorry.