The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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Ben’s Been Lazy

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I write a blog. I have no deadlines, no editor, no constant pressure to write, and no one on my ass. I write when I feel like it, which is the best sort of situation possible.

However, I’m lazy and I’m a procrastinator. I have a veritable plethora of distractions and I know how to use them. Didn’t the kitchen sink need scouring?

My blog serves two purposes. First, relaxation therapy for me. I love to write. I love to read my own words. I’m a neologist, a bombasterator, and an etymonarcissist. Occasionally, I add content to the words, which makes me even happier. The second purpose of my blog is to share information. When I write silly stuff like this, I’m not really sharing information. Furthermore, if I write drivel or worse, nothing, no one will come here to read my words, just on the off chance that they convey something meaningful. I am really falling down on the job.

I’ve castigated myself for non-performance in prior years’ football off-seasons. It seems to do no good. I have to rebuild my clientele every fall when football interest picks up. Every year I lose a few more because people rightly don’t have the time to read drivel when there are so many good and informative Penn State football blogs on the Internet. Look at Black Shoes Diaries or Linebacker U, to name just two. They’re not slacking off for the summer; they provide excellent information on- and off- season. Thus, they retain many of their hard core devotees during the summer.

Sandra Friend, who writes several blogs about hiking and outdoor life in Florida, has been traveling around the world and is always working on and publishing new books, yet her blogs continue to be regularly supplied with new content and don’t seem to miss a beat. Frankly, I don’t know how she does it all. But she does it, and she does it well.

Not this Turkey. Bad Turkey. This Turkey trots when he feels like it and for five months, he’s barely felt like it. I usually don’t post something for the gratuitous sake of having something to post, but today I have done so. Has it assuaged my guilt? Would that I could tell you.

And now the news:

Osama bin Laden is dead. Just in case you didn’t know it, you know it now. Discovery Channel is showing us all how it happened tonight at 10.

Jim Tressell still has his job at Ohio State, though it’s anyone’s guess as to why, in the wake of Tattoogate.

Prince William took a bride, a commoner. Now, Waity Katy gets to walk three steps behind Will in public. What a life.

Syria looks like the latest Muslim country to degenerate into civil unrest.

Joe Paterno walked out of a Big Ten press conference without answering any questions, leaving a couple of first year assistants to the press wolves.

The McCabe Sisters are still, as a unit, better than the Penn State offensive line.

The Big Ten’ll get you Twelve will still have two divisions inanely named Leaders and Legends for the forthcoming season.

Ashton Kutcher will replace chronic malcontent Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men. How is he going to maintain the show’s edge? Date a different cougar every month?

This Turkey no longer cares about American Idol, but is rooting for Hines Ward on Dancing With the Stars, which he has never seen.

The beleaguered Pittsburgh Penguins were drummed out of the first round of the playoffs. But it’s a wonder that they got so far without Crosby, Malkin, Staal, and Cooke for much of the season.

The same Penguins have been ruminating about reviving aging Czech star Jaromir Jagr. Last year they picked up Alex Kovalev, another former Pen star. Their combined age is 77.

The Pittsburgh Pirates were above .500 for one day.

Jenny got a dog. She’s a well behaved but shy cutie named Shyanne.

President Obama says he will allow oil drilling in the Gulf and Alaska Reserves. OMG, did he join the John Birch Society or something?

AT&T is trying to acquire the U.S. operations of T-Mobile, creating an oligopolistic market for cellular communications. Bad for the consumer. Very bad. (Next move would be for Verizon to acquire Sprint. Check and checkmate.)

Republican members of congress are threatening to block an increase in the debt ceiling. They ought to do more — like stopping runaway spending by both parties.

Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant likely suffered a core meltdown. We don’t know for certain, but we’ll be able to tell you better in 2.187 x 107 years or so.

 

I think I’ve covered enough to make this an official post. Right?

Fun With Ohio State Coaches

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By this time everyone is well aware of the deep doodoo Jim Tressel is in at Ohio State for having swept information about Tattoogate under the rug for at least six months before the story broke. The NCAA has come down hard on Tressel, but we’ll have to see how the administration at tOSU treats this mess. This Turkey thinks Tressel ought to be given his walking papers.

Tressel’s malfeasance brings back old memories of another Ohio State head coach — a legendary one at that — who was forced to retire shortly after punching a Clemson player who had just intercepted an OSU pass with the clock winding down and with Clemson ahead by two. It was 1978, and the scene was the old Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida. Have a look!

Pills, Pills, Pills!

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A couple of years ago, my friend Charlie postulated, “We’re not getting old. We are old!”

When you’re old, you take pills. My life seems to be defined by which pills I take and when I take them.

Many of you who are over sixty will identify with my pharmaceutical morass. If you do not, then congratulations on having led a healthful life, free from the chronic ailments that require drugs. I’m jealous.

Forthwith, a day in my pill life.

Morning comes and I wake. Foggily, driven by habit, I find myself by the bathroom medicine cabinet reaching for the four different pills I take at first light. One of them is a low-dose aspirin. I shouldn’t really take that on an empty stomach, but I get the enteric coated ones, so I do it anyway. Another is a thyroid pill whose instructions tell me to take it a half-hour before eating. Under its spell, I can make the bed, get showered and dressed, and catch up on the latest news. (Alternatively, I can write a blog about pills.)

There’s another one that tells me I must take it with food. I can eat breakfast, take my vitamins and supplements, which I keep in the kitchen, and return to the bathroom to brush my teeth and take the “with food” pill. Then I’m done until lunch time.

My urologist has me on a two-week course of antibiotics, taken twice a day. I take one at noon and one at midnight. It cannot be taken within a certain number of hours of consuming foods containing calcium, particularly milk and yogurt. So, that’s why I take it at lunch time, so I can have milk with my cereal at breakfast. As for the yogurt, well, I’ll take acidophilus pills to replenish my intestinal flora, thankyouverymuch. More pills to take!

Mid-afternoon is time for my happy pill, which must be taken with food. That’s a good excuse to have a snack, so it isn’t all bad. Of course, that one makes me drowsy, so it immediately starts working on me to amplify the somnolent effects of the Zyrtec I take for allergies. I inevitably feel the need to crash sometime between four and seven o’clock. That nap helps a lot, as I don’t sleep well at night, which is undoubtedly exacerbated by the antibiotic, which lists insomnia among its least scary side-effects.

I get a respite from pills until bedtime, when I regularly take three different meds. At the moment, though, it is four, because of the antibiotic. One of the night time pills makes me dizzy, so I can sleep dizzily. Another tweaks my liver overnight to reduce my serum cholesterol. Yet another inhibits the production of stomach acid to avoid the dreaded acid reflux.

Is it any wonder that I have strange dreams about forgetting to take my pills? They’re enhanced by the happy pills, which are known to cause vivid dreams.

That brings up the issues of side effects of drug interactions, and counterindications which I learned from Legacy Healing. I tried to make a chart to figure out when I should be taking what based on all these factors, but the ambiguities and the legal requirement to include all known negative effects and interactions in the literature conspired against me. Thus, I’m certain that my scheduling is suboptimal, with no hope for ever getting straightened out.

In the wake of my three-month bout of pneumonia, I have some remaining sinus and chest congestion symptoms. My last visit to the doc, for my annual physical, included a discussion of paths forward toward resolving these symptoms. The doctor suggested that I take Zyrtec in combination with Singulair for a month to see if that clears them up. I agreed, but that was before the urologist prescribed the antibiotic, at which time I decided to eschew the Singulair at least until I was done with the antibiotic. It, too, lists insomnia as a side-effect, as well as such delights as suicidal thoughts, aggression, and hallucinations. Holy crap! Too many damn pills!

I’m so weary of wondering what the combination of all these drugs is doing to my insides!

I was scheduled for a nuclear treadmill test in conjunction with my annual physical exam, but then that pesky urologist prescribed the antibiotic (Cipro), which is known to cause some heart rhythm irregularities. Thinking about that, I postponed the treadmill. Cipro is also known to cause tendinitis and ruptured tendons, particularly in people over sixty and particularly in the Achilles tendon. I visualized myself popping an Achilles while running on the treadmill — another good reason to postpone the test.

I know that I am not alone. I recently hosted friends my age from up north. They brought along at least five of those seven-day pill boxes. My 90 year-old mother, God bless her, is incapable of keeping track of her medicines and times, so she has a nurse stop by at the proper times to ensure she gets them. She’s fortunate in that she takes fewer drugs than many seniors — in fact, fewer drugs than I!

My attitude about medicine has changed considerably through the years. When I was much younger, I looked forward to getting drugs to fix what ailed me and then stopping them; however, now, as an old fart, I am taking a veritable plethora of pharmaceutical poisons presumably to remain viable. At what price, though? Aside from the aforementioned sleep issues, I have been through many side-effects. One drug I took a while back landed me in the hospital with a pseudo heart attack. Cardiac care units are not cheap, and I paid dearly for that episode. And let us not forget the fun intestinal issues associated with antibiotics. They hit me just when I needed them least — with house guests to entertain.

I think you get the picture. For you younger folks who are still immortal, take care of yourselves now or you will later find yourselves living for the pills, like me!