[Health] Argle bargle

So I found out why my neuro wasn't getting back to me... they were, the Asterisk (trixbox) phone system just wasn't emailing me the voicemails. Doh! Apparently when I set it up I used an old account that hasn't been active in 3 years but Comcast only pruned it out of their system somewhat recently-ish. Yeah... so much confusion entailed. Fixed that, now I'm going to add a Nagios monitor to actually *test* email delivery + reception on an automated basis, so I get notified if it gets fucked up again.

So, regarding the neuro... I have my appointment for Botox rescheduled (yes, it is a migraine treatment, because migraines are vasculomuscular spasms, and Botox helps freeze the muscles... that's my layperson understanding, at least). They also called in a 3 day course of prednisone to break the current 5-day migraine I've been dealing with. They said if I don't see an improvement after day 2 to call them and they'll go from there to see if I need to go to the ER or whatnot.

I have to say, I'm scared as hell to take the prednisone. I know the effect it had on my mind when I was on it for a year, and while I know that a 3 day course is not likely to have the same kind of effect (and certainly not the same extent, given how it gradually altered my personality)... I don't want to become that person again. EVER. It turned me into a raging asshole, nitpicking over everything, always needing to be right, dismissing everyone else, and turning all of my ASD symptoms/triggers up to beyond max.

While that helped make me realize (*after the fact*) what those problems are and how to cope with them better... I do NOT WANT TO BE LIKE THAT AGAIN. It nearly cost me my marriage with elialshadowpine. The only way I'm taking those pills is if she thinks it's the best thing, and I'm sure as hell not doing anything longer than three days. I don't trust it, and I don't trust myself not to become my evil!asshole self again while under the influence of it.

[Public] Duke, the cuddle!cat

In more cute news, Duke has really taken to being a cuddle cat with me. Most of the cats, if you put your arm around them (or worse, over them), they freak out or at least squirm away and zoom off. Him? He just shifts around until he gets comfortable, and starts motor-purring. I've taken to pulling one of my pillows down and putting it at an angle to the others so he can curl up on part of it while I rest my head against the part that angles against the other pillows, and nuzzle into his fur while he purrs away.

He also seems to like it if he has one of his paws over my arm as it's around him, so it usually ends up with my arm underneath his belly and between his front legs. Often with his head resting on my arm or hand. So precious to feel him plop his head down on me, and feel his breath against my skin.

I've taken to bringing him to bed when I go to try and sleep, and he's gotten so used to it that he often comes in when he hears the sleep music on the iPod and the AC turned on, jumping up on the bed and purring away.

I was reading on my iPad the other day (it looks like I'm sleeping in the picture, but just how tired I've been with this migraine and the angle the shot was taken and where I was looking) and cuddling him, and elialshadowpine came in and managed to grab a picture of him and me using the new Droid 4 that I got from work. Tossing under a cut since it's a large picture:

( cut for size, but cute cuddle cat beneath )

Let me know if you can't see it because Facebook makes you log in or something strange; I linked to their CDN so I think it should be fine even if you're logged out but I'm not 100% sure.

[Coding] Using my version of htop-osx

I've been futzing with htop-osx in my spare time to add support for CPU temperature monitoring and fan speed... these are things I like to know when I'm using a laptop, and I figured other folks here might as well. If you use homebrew, just do: brew edit htop-osx and paste in the values from https://gist.github.com/stormerider/5804653 and then brew install htop-osx (or if you already have it installed, brew upgrade htop-osx).

Otherwise, you can clone the fork from https://github.com/stormerider/htop-osx.git and build it manually. Once you've done so, run htop and hit F2 to enter setup, navigate over to Available Meters, and add them to whichever column you want (left or right). I normally make htop suid anyways to be able to get full process details, so I'm not sure if that's required to probe the SMC keys for temperature/fan speed, but it's possible.

(Most folks will only have one fan; the newer MacBook Pros and the 27" iMacs only do, I believe the Airs as well. Older MBPs have two, like the loaner I used when getting my MBP repaired. Some Mac Pros-- the desktops pre-iMac integration-- have up to 4 fans. The code currently only displays 3 of them, the 4th being the PSU fan.)

( Cut for screenshot )

Image also on FB, so let me know if there are issues with it as well.