Goin' South

So yesterday I added another US state to my list, as I flew in to Tampa Bay, FL. I am here for a work project. I have never been to Florida before, and from the little I have seen so far, I can say that Tampa is everywhere else in America, but with palm trees. It is just strip malls and chain stores as far as the eye can see. Maybe the beach front isn't like that, but here in Brandon (a suburb, I guess) it is generic Americana writ large.

The flight in was interesting, though. I am used to always flying over land, but this time we actually flew over the Caribbean for a while, so I got to see actual water. Interestingly enough, the water changed color the closer we got to land, and in some parts it was pretty bright green, like a powdered sencha. Interesting. It's probably all natural, but I don't think I would want to swim in the green stuff. On top of that, the flight was only 10 minutes late leaving St. Louis and it arrived on time, so that was great, and I slept about 1/3 of the trip, which is also great. Sleeping always helps the trip go faster.

The only annoying thing about Tampa so far is the way their airport is laid out, which is really confusing. For example, they have 2 different luggage pickup areas, Red and Blue. I was in Red, and needed to go to Blue to meet a coworker coming in from Ohio. These areas are on the same level of the airport, but to get from one to the other requires going up a flight of stairs, crossing the central open area, going up an escalator, and then taking an escalator down two stories. Why can't I just walk across to the other area? Why must I go up 2 stories just to come back down 2 stories? Very strange.

Tales of my Teeth

One of the things that happened after the pain killer they gave me at the dentist office wore off was that my teeth that got the new fillings were quite sore, and very sensitive to cold and heat. This worried me quite a bit, as I know that such pain is a classic sign of an infected root, which would mean that my tooth was dying. So when I went to see X3 on Friday I was in pain, and when I went to the Greek festival on Saturday I was in pain, and really most of the weekend wasn't all that much fun. Busy, but not fun. The good news is that today I noticed that the pain and sensitivity wasn't as bad as Sunday, so hopefully it means that my teeth were just beat up in the operation (they cut 30% of the affected teeth off, so that's not surprising) and sore, but will recover over the next couple of weeks. Oh, and for the record, porcelain fillings taste weird. I haven't gotten used to that yet.

New comic reviews

New comic reviews are up on my website.

More Adventures at the Dentist

My broken tooth is finally fixed. Unfortunately, it was an almost 3 hour long procedure, and was unpleasant. Not as bad as the infamous Omaha incident, but approaching that. The big difference is that instead of the generic, run-of-the-mill cheap stuff that they normally use, my new fillings are genuine porcelain. I know you're all jealous. Seriously, this was some crazy stuff. After an hour of drilling, I had to wait for an hour while the porcelain fillings solidified out of the mold they had made, and then it was 45 minutes to set them all, drill them to shape, and polish them out. The good part of all of this was that I got worked on by the pretty dental assistant lady, who was as pleasant as always. She is much better than the grumpy older lady I sometimes get assigned to.

And, in case you were wondering, getting the porcelain fillings is a lot more expensive than the cheap stuff. Like, 3 times as much. I only get that kind of special treatment because I grind my teeth hard enough, even with a mouthguard, to break out the cheap stuff, hence my need for today's treatment.

In good news, it's a long weekend!

I'm Tempted to Actually Watch This

So I was checking over the TV listings this morning to see when the Sabres/Hurricanes game starts, and I saw this listing for a History Channel show called How William Shatner Changed the World. Ummm... what? How who changed the what? I'm somewhat horrified at the concept (I am so not a William Shatner fan), but it could end up being unintentionally hilarious, so maybe I'll have to check it out during the intermissions.