It's been awhile since I wrote here, I think. The reason is that one week ago, I had all 4 of my wisdom teeth removed. Although from what I've heard, I'm dealing rather well with it, it's by no means a pleasant experience. Last Wednesday, my mom came into town, we went to the UPMC building, to the dental surgeons, and I lay down on the chair. They stuck an IV into me (never a good thing -- needles make me very dizzy), I began to feel ill and mentioned such, and I remember nothing after that. I only vaguely remember the rest of the day -- Debb and my mom were there, my mom cleaned my apartment, and presumably my mom left eventually. I might have vomited sometime during that day too. I mostly remember Thursday -- I was really out of it, had trouble concentrating or thinking, and I stayed home. I alternated between reading, doing stuff on the computer, and sleeping. On Friday, I went to work. I had a very low attention span, but managed to get some stuff done. BushJr started his war early this day. More on that later. Near the end of the day, I went and saw a presentation by a company called Axicon that developed the gearbox for the Segway. They had 2 Segways there, and afterwards I got to ride one. More on that later as well. Partway through walking home, Debb came and picked me up. She was having a bad day because one of her law professors did something rather cruel. The weekend went ok, but late Sunday, the pain started to really pick up. I think my other teeth noticed that those back teeth are gone, and they're starting to shift back. The upper teeth are completely ok -- no pain or discomfort there. The lower ones are the bad ones -- at times they bring me into tearful agony, and that pain can give me a horrible headache to match. Fortunately, they come and go, and Ibuprofin helps. The doctors gave me an opium-based pill that I can take if need be, but I've been trying to avoid it because I don't like the idea of taking that stuff. Still, I'm doing ok right now, and hopefully things will stay better.

The segway was really fun to ride. They do look pretty stupid (especially when not moving), but being on one was a joy. They're designed so that it'd be very difficult to fall over. I imagine that one could get proficiency in their use in about 30 minutes -- during the 2 minutes or so I got to ride, I, like the 50 other geeks at the seminar, was a bit wobbly. I think the 2 things one would learn during that period would be to more precisely control one's lean forward and back, and to eliminate one's instinctual inclination to keep correcting a slight lean while standing. I'd love to have a Segway... if only they wern't so expensive... Amazon has them for sale for $5000...

Well, it looks like BushJr decided to go ahead with war. He started an attack last Friday. I personally see little reason for this war. It's not about the Kurds -- there's little hope of them getting the country they want out of this. Such a country would be seen as a major threat to Iraq, Iran, and Turkey (not militarily, but that it would encourage Kurdish regions within their borders to revolt and join Kurdistan). I don't think it's about Iraq's internal politics -- there are many other countries with politics similar to those brought about by the Baathists. Further, Iraq might have one of the more secular governments in the region, placing them ideologically distant from bin Laden and other such terrorists. Does Iraq support terror? Well, there's an intense dislike of the U.S., but that's not really that uncommon for that region, and in my opinion, sensible people should at least be pretty skeptical about U.S. foreign policy. There haven't been credible ties shown between Iraq and terrorist activities, and the idea of ties between Al Qaeda and the Baathists is laughable. Is Iraq agressive towards their neighbors? Not particularly -- the Iran-Iraq war was provoked by Iran, and Kuwait was about shared oilfields and economics. Iraq is by no means a nice country, and Saddam is no Jimmy Carter, but it's actions are unremarkable for the region. Further, BushJr put forth the weapons inspectors and the U.N. as legitimate means to judge Iraq, and then disregarded them when they didn't justify his agression. I don't think Iraq should've been forced to disarm in the first place, but I think there's a certain commitment that BushJr made in putting forth those means, and that by disregarding them when they didn't point his way, he reveals them to be little more than an attempt at propoganda. So, all in all, I have no respect for Bush's reasons or process with this war. I'd be pleased if it could just be resolved by putting him and Saddam in a room, each armed with a few hand grenades, and letting them fight it out. OTOH, like with Saddam, there's very little hope of decent rule in Washington until BushJr's regime is completely removed from power. Ridge, Cheney, BushJr, and all those folks need to go. I hope the next election goes better.. I think the problem with the last one was that the democrats didn't have decent candicates. It wouldn't've been hard to beat Bush if only they had had non-scary people running. I hereby promise to vote for the first time in a U.S. presidential election if Howard Dean wins the nomination (provided he doesn't run with someone scary). I guess politics is always a game of "good enough". Reminds me of that Cyndi Lauper song...