It still looks like crap in IE, doesn't it?

Oh, well... been working on it all day and I just no longer care.

I suppose the hardest part was removing so many blogs from the blogroll.

It had to be done, though. The blog looked like crap, the blogroll had become a mile long, and I couldn't look at it anymore.

I hope I actually leave it alone for a while... not tweaking it, not messing with it, just letting it sit. This is the cleanest that SouthCon has looked in more than a year. I'm not going to mess with it. I hope.

Seriously, though, cutting so many of those blogs from the blogroll was hard. I guess I've just gotten too easy about giving away links. Everyone who asks me for a link gets one, and every blog I read that I like ends up added to the list. I have to use some self control. The blogroll has GOT to stay manageable.

That's not really want I wanted to write about today. I wanted to gripe and complain about my back.

If you're one of the few who're kind enough to read my meanderings regularly, you might know that I had back surgery last August. Here's the latest. About a month ago, I started having problems with my left leg. I started to think that something might be wrong because of three things that were happening:

• One, my leg often hurt. A whole lot.


• Two, I had a tingling sensation that would come and go in my left foot.


• Three, sometimes, out of the blue, I'd fall down for no reason.

Example three listed above wasn't ALL bad, I guess. My co-workers thought it was friggin' HILARIOUS. I got sick of being the Buster Keaton for the whole mill, though, and finally decided to go to a doctor.

Long story short, my doctor sent me to an orthopedic guy who told me that my leg was fine, the real problem was my back again. He said he suspected that the disc I'd had worked on last year was acting up again, or that I might have a problem with scar tissue.

I didn't want to hear that. I can't afford to miss another three months from work, and I mean... come on, man! It's APRIL! It's just now getting warm outside!

Flash forward to last week: I'm sitting down at home and I notice a sudden pain in my back. So I stood up and, allasudden, it's like somebody is behind me hitting me with a shovel. Except when THAT happens, I know exactly what's going on and it's usually because of something I've done to deserve it. Nope, this wasn't shovel-pain, this was my back going to pieces again. No mistaking it.

So I spent a couple of days in bed and called my doctor to have an MRI done.

If you're not familiar with the MRI process, it's like a super X-Ray machine or something. That's what I call it, anyway... and unless you're a doctor or something, that definition is probably good enough for you.

OK, look, I'll pull up Google Image Search and see what I can find.

OK, here ya go... this is an MRI machine. And, whattayaknow, it looks EXACTLY like the one I had my MRI done in.

An MRI machine is a machine wherein you lay down flat and get rolled back into this tiny little tube where you marvel about the fact that you didn't used to be claustrophobic... but, by gosh, all you can think right now is that you want to wiggle out of this damned thing and run down the hall screaming "You'll never catch me again, you fools!" Except that your back is screwed up and you can't walk, much less run, and therefore you know damn well that the fools WILL, in fact, catch you... and fairly quickly, too.

An MRI machine is also a machine that requires the patient to lie as flat and as still as possible for what seems like about seventeen years... and if you forget that, there's an MRI technician who's job is to yell "HOLD STILL, PLEASE" into a mic somewhere that makes her annoying voice come out of a speaker that sounds like it must be DIRECTLY ABOVE YOUR HEAD. So you lie as still as you can, and while you're being as still as possible, a vent of some kind in the machine blows a slight breeze across your face that makes your nose itch like absolute hell.

Before you can have an MRI done, you have to answer about eleven billion questions about whether or not you have any metal in your body. It is very, very, very important that anyone getting an MRI be made EXCLUSIVELY out of meat and blood and bones and hair and guts. If you're made out of ANY METAL AT ALL, you could possibly explode (I suppose) during your MRI... and then the hospital's cleaning team would have to work over that evening and the shop steward must be a real SOB because the MRI technician was DETERMINED to find out if I had ANY metal in my body at all. He asked me questions about surgery and about implants and about my tattoos and on and on and on... and all the while, he was giving me this evil eye, like he thought I might be lying to him. Like it was secretly my goal to shove a nickel up my butt and smuggle it into the MRI machine, just so I could make my butt explode and then HA HA HA HA HA the JOKE'S ON YOU, TECHNIC IAN!

So after I convinced the Technician that I was NOT the bionic man and that I didn't have any metal parts at all, they did my MRI... and seventeen years later, they pulled me out of the machine, resulting in the most orgasmic nose-scratching experience anyone could ever have.

So, anyway, it turns out that what I've done is herniate the disc directly below the disc I herniated last year. That's right, lucky me, I get to have back surgery twice in eight months.

I was able to get one of the MRI pictures so I could show everyone what my back looks like.

First, here's a picture of a healthy, normal back:

Looks great, doesn't it? Looks fit and spry and rarin' to go. I bet that's exactly what YOUR back looks like, in fact. And, if it does, I really hope you appreciate it. If I were you, and if I had a healthy, happy back like you have, I'd go outside and jump up and down right now, screaming "Wheeeeeee!" Go ahead. I'll wait here.

Didn't that feel good? Good for you. Honestly, I don't begrudge you your health at all.

Anyway, now here's an MRI picture of MY back:

Yeah, it is gonna need some work.