Southland - NBC's new cop drama

I love this show. Cop drama following the lives of beat cops and detectives in lapd. It's got a catchy well-lit noir intro, features a quick glimpse of something that happens in the future, and then the show moves from past-present and onwards thereafter. I saw an episode on Hulu.com last week and now I'm hooked. I'm in the middle of an episode now, unforutnetly Hulu only features the most recent 5 episodes so I haven't seen the first and second episodes. 

Funny thing is that I don't even like "cop dramas". Nope. I never got into NYPD Blue, CSI Miami, Law and Order: Whichever. Barney Miller was before my time, but I'll get around to it since the namesake character was featured in a "top 100 characters of all time" on either Bravo or E!... whoops I can't remember which network...

The closest things to cop drama's I ever got into as a youngster were Quincy and Rockford Files, neither of the guys were cops. Southland is great because it basks in a background radiation of gritty LA life: gang bangers, drug dealers, rapists, so forth. However, it's the foreground we're all after - it strives for in depth character development. It's serial not episodic, which is something that turns me off of most crime drama's and their mindless money-making spin-offs. Oh and of course being about cops and taking place in LA there are a few sub-story-arcs or sub-plots about racial and socio-economic divides.

So when is Oakland going to get a successful police drama franchise on Network TV?

Sinus Surgery - Day 8 - Sinus Rinse Fun Time

I'm sleeping at really odd times, like 5AM to 3PM and napping in the evening. It's weird. Ever since surgery... hmmmm.

So yesterday after the doc's visit I picked up a Sinus Rinse as he instructed. I'm supposed to use this rinse daily. In his ultra-space-y-ness he forgot to explain to me what a sinus rinse was and why I needed it, until I probed him further before our "time was up"... skip to this morning... whoops I mean this afternoon. I wake up and whine about how ridiculous the instructions are... can't use tap water, has to be filtered by a 0.5 micron filter, we don't know our home filter size so my sister suggest that I use the drinking water tap, ok that'll work. I microwave some water and add it to room temp water to make it warm then add 8 ounces worth to the sinus rinse bottle.

It's designed to be held to one nostril over a sink... you mix the aforementioned water and a packet of bicarb solution and then squirt about 2-4 ounces of water in one nostril while tilting your head over the sink... the rinse then swishes around your sinuses and spills out the OTHER nostril. SO WEIRD! I did that in both and it was actually pretty neat, not too much discomfort at all and it really cleared out the blood, etc. that had accumulated. Yay.

I want to post photos of this thing in action, its such a simple product and they charge 9.97 for it at walmart and 11.67 on sale at safeway. It's a plastic bottle, nozzle, and packets of bicarb - probably all made in china... for like 10 cents a unit. Man they're making a killing at NeilMed the san raefel company that produces this stuff.

Sinus Surgery - A Week Later (Day 7)

I still need to fill in the gaps with blog posts about the day of surgery and immediately after, it's been quite a ride since last week (and I originally thought my anxiety over the surgery was nuts!) The surgery went pretty well last Tuesday and the doc has said that he hopes to have addressed the "mechanical" breathing problems I've been facing, but the key caveat is that everything needs to heal properly and that's why I've visited his office 4 times in the last week post-operation.

I just had to sneak in a post here because today's ENT visit was near horrific, but had some aspect of extasy whereby I left the exam room bleeding like crazy, but oddly very excited about how I handled myself. If that makes sense...

So the scheduling nurse had already set up this standard week after surgery appointment and my dad drove me as he has throughout this process. We arrive for a 1:15 appointment and as always I'm seen 30-45 minutes late (sometimes it's a longer day). The doctor squirted a set of nasal numbing agent and decongestant and left me alone for what seemed like an eternity (about 15 minutes). He returned and asked me to hold the instrument you see above, a 5 inch long needle looking sheath that has a tine camera on the end which feeds to a TV in a corner of the exam room. I was asked to put my knees together, and that means pain is on the way. He stuck the rigid needle up my right nostril and poked around checking out the passageways between the nose and ethmoid sinus, but not actually through the tiny openings that reach the sinus (that's for next week).

It was super painful! He then moved to the left nostril and by that point I was all tearing up, but definitely keeping my cool. After the left nostril we chatted about my progress, he said he'd corrected a slight lateralization of the left inferior turbinate and I was otherwise healing well. He prescribed me an OTC Sinus Rinse and sent me on my way. I proceeded have a crazy nose bleed and met my dad outside - he'd always joined me in the exam room, but this time I wanted him to wait outside because I thought it was going to be a bit more excruciating. And it was!

I really felt like I handled the pain well and was somehow really excited after. Or maybe it was the hydrocodone kicking in! Those opiate pain killers are dangerous!