julesjones

Well, that's the word count shot for the next few days. This morning's wooziness turned out to be migraine and not lack of sleep. I don't feel that bad as long as I don't have to deal with loud noise, but my typing has gone to pot and holding a train of thought long enough to write the next scene is beyond me at the moment.

And apparently I can't control the mouse. Good thing Dreamwidth has a restore from draft, because I somehow managed to close the DW tab on my browser...

I wasn't sure yesterday whether I was just knackered because I'd had a very disturbed night's sleep, or whether I had the start of migraine aura. This morning there was no doubt. I actually feel fairly okay, apart from the bit with having the attention span of a drunken goldfish, but I'm also very tired and it would probably be a good idea to go to bed early. I did get a hundred words or so done on Taxman on Sunday night, but nothing last night because I was too tired tonight, and I think I shall skip tonight because I can already see characteristic migraine typos in this post, and it will be a waste of time trying to compose fiction or even book log. Is irritating, because I have stuff I want to get down on electrons...

I wonder how many obscene words are in the built-in vocabulary? Because it will probably have learned a few new ones by the end of the week. So far using it to navigate around the desktop has been less than successful, ranging from general flakiness to closing the entire Mozilla when all I wanted it to do was switch to the next tab. Oh, and the microphone randomly switches off in software.

But for the absolute pinnacle of bloody annoyingness, we must go to its refusal to be open at the same time as its PDF manual. I have no idea what the problem is other than that this is the 2008 version of Dragon, and I'm running the latest version of Adobe Reader, so it's possible that something new in Reader isn't compatible.

In spite of all which, I am so glad that I have Dragon, and I am already used to using it, even if I haven't used it for a while and can't remember most of the commands. This entry has taken about 10 minutes to dictate, and a lot of muttering while the microphone was off, but it might well have taken me 10 minutes to type it, given the current state of my hands.

Apparently I have not needed to use Dragon since I rebuilt the laptop software install last year. Because I've just had to install it, not having done so at the time...

Probably easier to re-train from scratch than dig out the old training files. But either way, it's a job for tomorrow. It's taken all evening just to install it, register it, and download and install the service pack. Note to self, in future do not wait until you actually need it before installing it.

Been essentially offline for the last week, because I had another week-long migraine, the second in less than a month. Started on Monday evening, by the time I got home from the day job on Tuesday the last thing I wanted to do was look at a monitor. Am not amused, and this will be flagged up at next GP visit as "okay, that wasn't a one-off, do we wait for the third or do something about it now?"

Much better today, but I'm still not fit to spend much time in front of the computer, so I am officially abandoning any notion of the book log for Oct and Nov being more than a list of the books read (with the exception of the LTER book which I owe a review for). Thought about trying to upload a bit more fanfic, but dealing with the email backlog used up my thinking power. Too fuzzy to bother trying to write some WIP longhand, particularly as even yesterday I felt sick simply writing Christmas cards. So spent a lot of the day listening to audiobooks and doing some cross-stitch -- and not any of the more complex ones, either. Backstitch outline on a nearly completed coaster was about my limit.

Really looking forward to having a week off over Christmas/New Year.

I got varifocals last year for when I'm wearing glasses rather than contacts, but up until three months ago I mostly only needed reading glasses with the contacts for 12 point print when I was tired or in poor light. Now I just need reading glasses, and for the computer as well as books. :-( Which meant that I spent a couple of hours and a chunk of change in the opticians' this evening, getting a current sight test and then measured up for occupational bifocals to wear with the contact lenses. This apparently is the term for bifocals with a monitor-distance prescription in the top and a book-distance prescription in the bottom. These are not cheap when compared with off the shelf reading glasses, even before the fancy coatings and lightweight plastic options. They do, however, come with proper prescription lenses which include the correction for my astigmatism and correct adjustment for my inter-pupil distance, which means I should have much better close vision than with off the shelf.

The optometrist confirmed that I'm getting this level of presbyopia about five years earlier than is normal, and suggested that it could possibly be a side-effect of one of the many medications I've had over the years causing some early weakening of the muscles. I would cheerfully blame the one that was giving me actual muscle problems recently, but I know I had a measurable requirement for reading glasses at least 5 years ago, when I was living in California.

Middle age sucks. It's better than the alternative, but it still sucks.

In case any of my flist who could be affected haven't seen this yet -- all packs of Nurofen Plus in the UK [update: and the Republic of Ireland] are now subject to recall because several packs have had the contents switched for the psychiatric drug Seroquel. There is a new report as of last night that one pack has been switched for the epilepsy drug Neurontin.

An accidental dose of Seroquel isn't likely to do anything to a healthy adult other than make them incredibly sleepy, but given how many of my flist take medications[*] which could have a dangerous interaction with a surprise 50mg dose (including people already on Seroquel), I'd advise checking the MHRA batch recall alert and full recall alert and/or the BBC update about further sabotaged packs being found. All pack sizes and batches are now suspect.

[*Patient leaflet explicitly mentions other psychiatric drugs, and drugs for epilepsy, infection control, high blood pressure, TB. The BBC report also refers to the sedative effect interacting with anti-histamines and other sedatives.]

Because I am a geek, I just went and rounded up assorted pairs of glasses and my postal scales...

1) The latest varifocals.
Full frame titanium, the lowest grade of the several types of high index plastic now available. The lens area is slightly smaller than on the other pair.
Weight is 21g.

code numbers on the frame: 53 17-140 titan 277 24882521 | specsavers 1003194

picture at Specsavers site


2) the first pair of varifocals.
Full frame titanium, the highest grade of the several types of high index plastic now available.
Weight is 19g.

code numbers on the frame: 52 19-140 titan 172 24315364 | specsavers 1001676

picture at Specsavers site


3) the pair I bought a year ago.
Half frame titanium, the highest grade of the several types of high index plastic now available.
Weight is 15g.

code numbers on the frame: 51 19-135 titan 263 24857482 | specsavers 10[blurred]

picture at Specsavers site

(These are some of the most comfortable glasses I've ever worn, although I still don't like the way these shallow designer lenses lose you peripherial vision at the top and bottom.)

4) the last pair I bought before leaving the US, so 3 to 4 years ago.
Full frame lightweight (I think titanium, but not sure), and high index lenses
These have the much deeper lenses you used to be able to get, and that are no longer available in lightweight frames because the cool kids don't wear them.
Weight is 28g

code numbers on the frame: M115 215 140 D.V. | 140 Marchon(R) DV

Ah, googling finds me a picture of the M115 frame.

5) An old pair, probably about 12-15 years old.
I think these were the "other" pair on a 2 for 1 from Specsavers -- I'd left my glasses behind on a trip, and I needed to get a new pair anyway. So I called into the local branch who made me up an emergency pair from their "available in an hour" range, plus a pair in lightweight lenses (which at the time took at least a week to make). Once I got the lightweight set a couple of weeks later, these ones were relegated to emergency backup.
Full frame, standard plastic lenses. The frame would have been the lightest set I could find available for same day fitting, but I'm not sure if it was a titanium frame. The other set isn't around, but I remember it being distinctly lighter on my nose than this set, probably about the same as (4).
Weight is 36g

code numbers on the frame: Marco 24056208 | Specsavers FP 1612089

###

And the conclusion from all that? Yes, it really does make a difference in the weight pressing on your nose when it comes to frame style, frame material, and lens material. Of course, it also makes a difference in the weight on your wallet...

It's not an entirely accurate comparison, as the oldest set is also a higher prescription, but there is a very clear difference in edge thickness from the top end "light and thin" (1 and 3) to the standard "light and thin" (2 and 4), and from the standard "light and thin" to the basic plastic lens (5).

As noted earlier this month, over the last few months I've gone from occasionally needing reading glasses when I'm tired and/or the light's dim, to not wanting to take out my contacts in the evening because then I can't wear reading glasses and thus can't read.

I was persuaded by the optician to try varifocals rather than bifocals, on the grounds that they're much better than they used to be. I was somewhat dubious, recollecting my experience with them 30 years ago, but since they have a 30 day money-back guarantee if you don't get on with them, I ordered a pair. Picked up the new varifocals on Saturday. Have not had the contacts in since, until this morning, when I put them in because too long with glasses gives me a headache simply from the weight on my nose, and I was starting to feel it a bit last night.

Granted, I paid for the flashiest options, and I have a pretty low reading prescription, but they worked so well that I wasn't quite sure they *were* varifocal until I tried reading at home, and found that something I couldn't handle before without a reading lamp was suddenly sharp and clear. These will not be going back, probably for "cold dead hands" values of "not going back". :-) The only issue I have with them so far is that at my standard reading prescription, they're great for reading but not quite strong enough for fine work like cross-stitch.

Specsavers have a 2 for 1 deal on the more expensive frames, which I buy to get the lightweight titanium for the aforementioned weight-on-nose problem rather than to look cool. Unfortunately the 2 for 1 only covers the basic lenses, so I have to pay for the add-ons, in particular the high index plastic which also reduces the weight. Since the second pair will be a back up pair, I have gone for the lowest end of the range on that rather than the highest end as I normally would, and I also didn't go for the best option in the lens shaping. I'll be interested to see how good the second pair are compared to the first, but they won't be made up until I've formally accepted the first pair.