Coffee, My Old Friend, You've Done Your Job Once Again... But TOO Well!

I might have mentioned at some point, that as a father of five, I have been mostly sleep deprived for the last seventeen years.

The problem, particularly, has reared its ugly head in movie theatres.

Where I would fall asleep.

EVERY time.

No matter HOW much I wanted to see the movie in question.

But I found a solution a couple of years ago. Drinking a cup of coffee on the way to the theatre would keep me awake for the film. Forget the coffee, fall asleep. It's pretty much an exact science.

It worked again tonight. Saw "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby." Which, by the way, was REALLY funny. Not just fairly funny or pretty funny. It was REALLY REALLY funny. The kind of funny you get only when you expect to be no more than mildly amused. When you EXPECT really funny, you never get it.

But my old friend coffee has done it again. It's worked too well. Because here I am, one in the morning, and still buzzing. Instead of sleeping. Even though I need to be back up in five hours.

I'm just not tired.

But don't worry... give me five hours, give or take, and I guarantee I *will* be.

Sounds Like the Emmys DO Know Jack...

Tonight was a good night to be a "24" fan. The Emmy Awards have finally caught on. Best Dramatic Series, and Best Actor in a Dramatic Series.

Yay.



(Anything to keep me occupied until January when it starts back up again... as well as to keep my mind off what's been happening to poor Jack...)

I Like to HOP to Work on Fridays...

When I first heard this, I did a bit of a double take. Shook my head, and thought that I must have heard wrong.

But I hadn't.

It's one of the regular routines of our office.

On Friday afternoons....

THEY BRING IN BEER FOR EVERYONE.

Can you imagine?

At any other job I ever worked at, if you even said the word "beer" in any context in relation to the work environment, I'm pretty sure they would have hacked your head off, stuck it on a pike, and put it out in front of the building as a warning for all the others!

Not this place though.

I must say that it's pretty nice. Even if you don't particularly *like* beer, you have to admire the corporate culture that isn't freaked out by the idea. I'm not even a big beer drinker myself.

... that's not to say that I didn't have one yesterday, though.



*********************************************************
So do you get the title now? HOP to work? Beer? Made with hops? Get it?

Far, Far, Faaaaar Away....

When you spend a large chunk of your life keeping your kids either:

(a) within your reach, or
(b) within your range of influence,

... it's a little freaky to have them gone so far that all you can do is trust that they learned enough to take care of themselves.

Child number one is away on the very trip that she spent so much time fundraising for, these last couple of years. She's touring the UK, particularly Scotland, and is even participating in the Highland Dance Competitions at the Cowal Highland Gathering.

To express properly how far she is, please refer to the following map:


See my point? Not exactly in the range of a phone call saying, "Daddy, I want to come home. Please come get me."

Ok, well, she's seventeen. She wouldn't say that anyway.

I must say, though, if I *did* get a call like that, I'd be driving straight to the airport like a bat out of hell.

Just so we're clear on that.

Big Chunk O' Me, Part IV: The Final Chapter... a.k.a. "Holy Sh*t, I'm In Pain!"

You know, I realized earlier today that each chapter of this saga carried a lesson.

Part I was "If I'm Having my Blood Pressure Taken for the Express Purpose of Proving that my Blood Pressure is Normal, It Makes My Blood Pressure Go Up". I'll admit, that lesson isn't terrible useful in other parts of my life, but, hey, beggars can't be choosy.

Part II was "Karma's a Bitch." That one I need to remember.

Part III was "You're Never Too Sick to Be a B*stard". That one I also need to remember. If nothing else, but to remind me not to be.

So... what will be the life lesson of this final chapter? I think it will need to be: "Don't Believe Everything You Hear, Even If You Hear It from a Doctor."

What do I mean, you ask?

Let's flash back to the day after my surgery.

First off, I wake up to realize that I still have a tube sticking out of someplace where I have NO interest for a tube to be sticking out of. I beg the nurse to remove it, which she does, provided I promise to pee in a jug so she can keep track of it. Yeah, whatever. JUST RIP IT OUT!!!! (Not to mention, I have a huge vertical incision south of my belly button, as well as four "poke holes" in my abdomen which they used to see their way during my laparoscopic operation, all of which were closed with metal staples... see below for pictures!!) A few hideous seconds later, no more tube. Bye bye. And never come back.

Secondly, I'm in a serious amount of pain. They give me Dilaudid, which is some kind of narcotic which I hated so bad, I got off it within a day or two. Even when I was asleep, it made me feel freaky, in a really gross kind of way.

Here's where the problem starts. A doctor, who I've never met before, comes to check on me. I guess he's... I don't know, the recovery doctor.

I ask him if I can start eating yet. He says yes.

So, I eat. Corn Flakes, and yogourt, I think... doesn't matter. I eat. After fasting since Saturday (keep in mind that it's now Tuesday) eating feels pretty good.

For a while. Until I get in such a horrendous state of pain/discomfort/sickness... whatever it was I don't really have a good word for it, but trust me that it was really BAD.

Later in the day, I make it to the washroom, try to do what needs to be done, and don't think I can make it back. I was sick, hurt, scared, and totally disoriented. Someone just shoot me now, because I don't think I can take this. The door to the washroom opens, and there's my surgeon, coming to check on me. I don't remember what I said to him, but I know it's pretty pathetic. Once I make it back to my bed, the surgeon is aghast that I was told I could eat. Turns out I was "under" for quite a bit longer than usual (my compact muscular body, hee hee, made working the kidney out a bit more effort) and my digestive system was still "asleep". I wasn't supposed to eat until I had passed gas, which would have demonstrated that the ol' system was working again.

So WHAT THE HELL DID THAT OTHER DOCTOR TELL ME IT WAS OKAY TO EAT FOR????? I was a little pissed off. Especially considering that my wife had suggested that eating was probably not a good idea. She's never wrong. Why didn't I listen to her instead? (Well, because the other guy said that I could do something I really wanted to... if the person delivering food trays had been the one to say it was okay to eat, I might have listened to her too!)

Please allow me to refer you back to this chapter's lesson.

Over the next two days, the pain got better, and I could *really* eat, so off I went on Thursday. Corinna didn't have it so lucky... she started showing signs of rejection, and was back to surgery twice more... but eventually everything settled in for her... though it took two gut-wrenchingly emotional weeks. Almost three years later, and she's still good to go. Knock wood.

Oh, here's the final part. After being home for a week, it was time to take out my staples.

By the way, want to see my cool incisions, staples and all? We took pictures, never even dreaming that I would someday have a blog to post them on!

Here they are. To spare those of you who don't want to see, I won't put the 'thumbnails' on this page. But click HERE to see my "poke holes" and HERE to see the big vertical incision.

So where was I? Oh, yes, time for the staples to come out. My wife, talented person that she is, is up to the task. She gets started, and.... MY INCISION GAPES OPEN AT THE TOP!! That's NOT supposed to happen!

I find out later that the surgeon, after finishing removing my kidney, had someone ELSE close me up. Let's just refer to that person as... I don't know... an incompetent f*ckup!!! See, when you staple someone together, you should abut the two edges of the incision before stapling. NOT FLAP ONE PIECE ON TOP OF THE OTHER AS THIS PERSON DID FOR THE TOP TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT OF MY INCISION!!! The inside of me had knit together well enough, but all the skin was just hanging open. My dear wife tries everything, from steri-strips, to glue, to try and keep things together (and yes, we DID go see someone about it too...) but it healed pretty yucky. The top part of my incision healed to big thick red scar. So much for that underwear modeling career I was hoping to fall back on!

That's pretty much all the fun stuff. By two weeks post-surgery, I felt 100% better (though I wasn't), and by three weeks post, I actually was pretty much back to myself.

However, it took WEEKS for my appetite to return. I was never hungry. I ate because I knew I needed to, but there were no cues to tell me to eat. It started to worry me, but ultimately, my appetite came back. Didn't need those fifteen pounds anyway.

And... all joking aside...

Of course it was all worth it.

*******************
Wow, this really was WAY longer than I expected, especially when you string all four parts together. And the amusement content was a little lower than usual too. I PROMISE only to talk about frivolous fluff for a long time now! OK? OK.

Cross-Dressers on Parade

Unbeknownst to me, while I was writing up my last post, *this* is what was happening outside of my range of influence:



Words fail me.

Big Chunk O' Me, Part III: Giving My Pound of Flesh

If you never read part 1 or part 2, you probably won't want to read this part either.

So. Surgery Day. Get up, drive to the hospital with my wife blah blah, check in, blah blah, johnny shirt blah blah, sit and wait, blah blah... time to go for surgery.

Lie on the stretcher in the hall for, like, an hour, finally into the operating room, chat for a few minutes, they do stuff, and... poof.

Next thing I know, I'm in the recovery room. HOURS later. (For a better recap of the day, read my wife's e-mail to our family and friends, which she posted to her blog on the 2nd anniversary of the surgery.) I hang around in recovery for quite a while. I see and hear Corinna roll in some time later, but we don't interact much because she's pretty out of it. When they roll me down the hall towards my room, the first face I see is my father's, quickly followed by my wife's, my oldest daughter's, and my mother's. All of which were awfully nice to see.

However, and this is another life lesson I learned the hard way: You're never too sick to be a b*stard. Later on in the evening, I was lying in bed, bloated and strange. My dear wife was there with me. She starts to wash blood off my back or something like that, and I come out with this gem: "I just want you to be my wife, not my nurse!". Nice, eh? Of *course* it hurt her feelings. After all she had been through, she was trying to give me comfort in the best way she knew how, and I blew her off. I swear, that's the *one* moment in this entire process that I wish I could go back and change. Still makes me mad at myself.

Strangely enough, this wasn't the kind of event where someone is cracking off lots of pictures to commemorate the occasion. Here's the one recorded image from the whole day- a photo of me talking to my kids post surgery:



Was my freakishly huge hand a result of the anaesthetic, or just a trick of the camera? I'll leave that to you to decide. And, while the picture doesn't really give it away, I was shocked the next morning when I looked at myself and saw how bloated I was. My whole head looked like a baby's butt -- no creases at all! Luckily, I soon settled back from my new "baby's butt" look to my regular "horse's a$$" look.

Of course, one kidney short.

*********************************

Come on back now, y'hear? There's only one more of these left in me, I think. Let's call it "the aftermath." Unless I think of something funny to call it between now and then.

Big Chunk O' Me, Part II: The Intestinal Super-Expressway

So did you read part one?

When we last joined our hero, he was... aagh, I can't talk about myself in third person this whole post, it would drive me nuts.

Anyway, so I passed all the requirements, and was ready to go. They gave Corinna and me an early October date for surgery. There only ripple that came up was Hurricane Juan. The worst storm in Nova Scotia's recorded history, which blasted the CRAP out of us. And did some major damage to the roof of the building where we were supposed to have my surgery. Eventually, they repaired the damage, and cleared the backlog, and it only cost us about a month. Our new date was set for November 17th. Which, I believe, was a Monday.

The Friday before surgery, I went to the hospital to get my instructions, and other stuff which we'll discuss later. On my way, I couldn't resist dropping into the transplant coordinator's office. Rachelle, my coordinator, was out of the office, but the other coordinator, who I also liked very much, was there.

I walk into the office, and the woman greets me with a "How are you doing" kind of greeting. I blurt out:

"I'm sorry, I just can't go through with this!"

She had an "Oh. My. God." look on her face, but without missing a beat, she said, "Um, that's all right. Uh..."

I couldn't let her twist for long, though. I immediately said, "It's ok. I'm just f*cking with you." I *think* she was relieved, and possibly even slightly amused, but who can say for sure?

Having given in to my evil urges and joked about something that probably shouldn't have been joked about, I was woefully unaware of one of the basic tenets of life:

Karma's a bitch.

Fast forward to the day before my surgery. (The night before was my wife's Christmas party. The spread of food had been AMAZING, which would have been good except that I HAD ALREADY STARTED FASTING AND COULDN'T EAT *ANY* OF IT. Which totally sucked. ) Here comes the part that I don't think I adequately mentally prepared myself for, and which, in this household forever more, is a banned phrase:

Bowel prep.

Know what that is? In my case, it was a foul fruity tasting liquid, clear in colour, which I was supposed to drink a cup of every single hour for.. um... ever, I think. Supposed to "clean me out" for surgery. They told me to keep it chilled in the fridge, which would improve the taste. Well, let's just say that if that's the case, I'm glad I didn't drink it warm.



(It looked something like this... though I've tried to block out the memory)

I started off strong. The first one I gulped down. Second one, I don't think it slipped down quite so fast. Third one, I think I plugged my nose to try and reduce the foulness of it....

Oh, by this time, you know what else I'm doing?

Pretty much living in the bathroom, hanging on for dear life and trying to prevent all of my vital organs from rushing out of my butt along with torrents of... well, you get the idea.

And I'm supposed to KEEP on drinking that ... disgusting.... stuff. I'm being kind with the description. Adequate words fail me. Eventually, it was making me gag just smelling it coming close to my face.

I never did drink nearly all of the stuff I was instructed to. But let's just say I'm pretty sure that I was fully cleaned out. Just trust me on that one.

Eventually, my personal version of the white water rapids subsided, and my wife and I settled off to sleep in advance of our big adventure.

*******************************

Part three coming up. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

Big Chunk O' Me, Part I: Performance Anxiety

This is my first multi-post story. It's a story so big, you'd be really bored if I told it all at once. So I'll bore you in smaller pieces instead.

It's the incredible journey of my left kidney into my friend's lower abdomen. It's a tale fraught with thrills, chills, spills, staples, pain, um... narcotics, .... um.... and lots of other stuff.

As you all should know by now, I'm a *very* humble person. So sharing this story with you is difficult because it goes on and on about how wonderful I am, you know, and selfless, and humble, and, oh, wait, I already said that... well, you get the point. But I'll just have to carry on, tell you the dramatic story of my personal bravery, and just accept that your opinion of me will change for the better, if that's even possible.

This story won't be balanced. It's kind of like the movie version of "The Princess Bride"... it just skips over the boring stuff and cuts to the stuff I find interesting. Or amusing.

(Holy crap. The post is already to the "people starting to tune out" length, and I haven't actually started talking about, you know, actually donating my kidney.)

OK, let's cut to the chase. 2003. Our longtime friend Corinna develops kidney disease. After a few months of processing this, and realizing how serious this has become in such a short period of time, my wife and I decide that we need to help. So we agree that both of us will start the process of seeing if either of us is an acceptable donor.

I call the transplant people, and tell them how my wife and I want to start the process. The lady suggests that one of us start first, and then if that person doesn't make it through, then we will go to the other. I suggest that I go through first, since I'm not working, and my wife is a nursing mother, and... well, OK, the fact is I really wanted it to be me and not my wife. I just didn't want her to have to go through it, as admirable as it was. So anyway, with my secret master plan in place, I enter the process to see if I'm compatible.

Blah blah blah. Blood test. Blah blah blah kidney ultrasound. Blah blah blah appointment with nephrologist.... blah blah blah.... BLOOD PRESSURE CHECK.

Ah, yes, the blood pressure check. In hindsight, it's easy to say what I've learned about myself. At the time it was a shock. What I've learned is this:

IF I'M HAVING MY BLOOD PRESSURE TAKEN FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF PROVING THAT I HAVE NORMAL BLOOD PRESSURE, IT MAKES MY BLOOD PRESSURE GO UP. Which does kind of defeat the purpose of demonstrating that my blood pressure isn't high.

Oh, and a note to the nursing staff in the nephrology department: TELLING ME TO HAVE A SEAT AND JUST TRY TO RELAX DOESN'T ACTUALLY MAKE ME RELAX. It's kind of like telling a person to sit in an empty room and not to think about a white horse. Sorry, just doesn't happen.

Talk about performance anxiety. Clearly, Ron Jeremy I'm not. (Yeah, sorry, you'll have to Google him if you don't know what I mean. However, if you don't know what I mean, that probably means that you shouldn't Google him either).

Long story short, they eventually determined that my blood pressure is actually pretty much normal.

And that pretty much does it. I win. I'm going to be a kidney donor.

Stay tuned. Part two is pretty disgusting.

When E-mail Jokes Go Really Really Wrong... aka "How to Piss Off People and Possibly Get Yourself Killed"

Being back at work, and dealing with people's e-mail accounts, brought back a funny story to my mind. And when I say "funny", I mean "only funny because I wasn't directly involved."

In early 1998, I was back in school doing IT stuff, and had already been hired by a firm, along with several other of my classmates. Once we began work, we would be going to Boston for five weeks for training.

Two of these classmates thought they would play a little practical joke on another one of their buddies in the class. They made up an e-mail, and spoofed it so that it looked like it was coming from another student, an attractive young woman, who was also travelling to Boston soon.

The e-mail message said something like, "Hey, fella, maybe you and I can get together when we're in Boston" or something equally suggestive like that (or maybe even a little moreso). They even faked her home e-mail address, so that it would really look like it was coming from her.

They sent off the message to their friend. But he didn't receive it. "Huh?", they said. But they just figured that they did something wrong, and let it go at that.

Which is true. But they didn't suspect *how* wrong it actually was.

Anybody see where this is going yet? Yes? No? Stay with me.

Now, bear in mind that I knew all of these people, and was friendly with all of them. And I was aware of the failed e-mail joke. Which put me in the position of being the first to realize exactly what was happening.

I get home from school for the day, and get a call from the young woman. She's a little upset. And by that, I mean she's very upset in a "I don't know what the hell is going on, but I know that it's bad and I'm going to be really pissed off when I figure it out" kind of way.

She asks me if I know anything about some e-mail she got about going to Boston, and some other person... she basically tries to explain the message she received. AT HOME. Where her husband lives with her. Remember, she's half hysterical / half confused /all pissed off.

GONGGGGGGG goes my brain, as I realize what has happened.

Remember when they sent the e-mail, but it didn't get to its intended recipient? Well, that happened because they misspelled his e-mail address.

So what happens when you send an e-mail to an address that doesn't exist? It gets returned to the sender.

But REMEMBER how they faked the sender's address so that it would show the young woman's e-mail address...

...so the "Hey good looking, we going to get together in Boston" message got RETURNED TO THE YOUNG WOMAN'S REAL HOME E-MAIL ADDRESS, where she lives her real life with her real man.

The message which she discovered when she got home.

Now, luckily, it was HER who received the message first, rather than her boyfriend.

Because, as pissed off as she was, and as large a strip as she tore off the guys who did that...

If her husband got that message first...

I think the whole situation would have been MUCH worse.

A Home Electronic Emergency!!

This didn't happen to me. But it's funny enough that I had to mention it.

I was talking to a friend of mine today, at our kids' ball game. He tells me he had uninvited company last night.

His two boys (ages 9 and 7) had been messing around in their family room, and the older child bumped into something which made the power to the television go out.

That's quite a problem, isn't it?

Obviously, the seven-year-old thought so. Since he yells, "We need some help!!"...

...and dials 911.

Whoops.

My friend got to the phone in time to tell the 911 people that there wasn't really a problem, but they sent the police there to check things out anyway.

Oh well, at least it's cheap entertainment for the neighbours!

....................................

As we were chatting about that at the ball game today, someone says to me, "You have five kids. You mean that NONE of them has ever called 911?"

Which they haven't.

Knock wood fast. So I don't jinx us.

Time to Pay the Piper

I said this was going to happen. Last summer.

Longtime readers might remember the great divide caused by a fraction of an inch. Or maybe not. In any case, you can read about it here.

Go ahead, I'll wait.

....

....

....

Are you done? So, anyway, we made our triumphant return to the Crystal Palace indoor amusement park in New Brunswick today. We didn't stay overnight or anything. It's only a two-and-a-half hour drive, so we left shortly after 730 this morning, stayed for the day, and got back home here about 1015 pm.

And I can confirm that my mission was accomplished. The heartbroken little boy from last year is now a triumphant 'standard bracelet' wearer. No more kiddie rides for him. (In fact, those adhesive 'bracelets' from the amusement park are multiplying on his arm. He started with one, and now has three. And he's put in his request for mine as well, so I need to be careful taking it off.)

Yes, all the *rest* of us had fun too, rode lots of fun rides over and over (and over), and even broke for a movie in the afternoon ("Zoom", which was very enjoyable for the kids, and faintly watchable for the adults)... but, as I said, the true goal of the day was to wash away last year's sad memory. Here is the photographic proof:



Yeah, well, ok, it's a little blurry. But give me some credit, all right? I was about thirty feet up, travelling I don't know *how* fast, and a *little* nervous about even USING my camera while riding a crazy amusement ride. I said, "I should take a picture of this for my blog." Just look at the lengths I go to for you people!

In any case, you can't miss the smile, though. That smile was the whole purpose for our trip.

Good thing I didn't get hit by a bus or anything since last summer.

Then I never would have had closure.

Thanks, Public Transit!

One happy side effect of going back to work: Taking the bus.

Wait. That's not exactly it.

The happy side effect of taking the bus, however, is *reading*. All of a sudden, I have a captive period at the beginning and end of the day to read. That is, other than the "climb into bed, read one page over and over because it doesn't make sense, fall asleep with the lights on and the book across my chest" style of reading which I pretty much perfected over the last few years.

In the last two weeks, I finally finished a Jeffery Deaver book I've been picking at for a long time, and have now become *totally* engrossed in the Stephen King book called "Cell." Basically, it starts off with the premise that some kind of 'pulse' turns anyone who was using a cellphone at the time into a mindless, murderous, maniac. Things get kind of bad from there. Reminds me a bit of "The Stand" and the short story "The Mist."



Thanks, public transit.

Float ... WRITE Like a Butterfly...

Man. Here I was, using fancy computer fonts all the time... when I just could have used what was available to me in nature! Look:



Here we have... butterfly text! All the letters, numbers, and symbols you need, direct from the wings of butterflies!

Try it yourself at Sandved.com.

But don't tell them I sent you. They've never heard of me.

Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Hard Drive Space Gone, Oh Where, Oh Where Can It Be....

Isn't this pretty?



It's my hard drive.

Well, it's not *really* my hard drive, but it is a nifty little 'graphical representation' of my hard drive! It's thanks to a neat (and FREE) program called SpaceMonger. I even like the name. SpaceMonger.

See that big white block? That's how much free space I have. All the other coloured blocks represent files and folders, and their size in the image is relative to how large they are in your hard drive. You can 'dig down' deeper into folders and subfolders as well, and delete any files you don't want directly from inside the program.

Very handy for seeing what's taking up space on your computer. Bear in mind that if you have a proclivity for downloading porn habit of saving large files on your pc, it will be easy to see where they are.

Here's the download.com link where I got the program. If you're interested.

But please don't blame me for what you find. (wink)

Guys! Did You Get Your HAIRCUT Yet This Week?!?

I've never seen this phenomenon before.

The week started normally enough. On Monday, I noticed that a guy at the office had his hair cut. I can't help it. I just notice things like that. It's always been a big hit with the ladies. (I just say, "Hey, did you get your haircut?", and when they say yes, I say, "It looks good." Then they get all smiley and say that they wish their *husbands* would notice when they get their hair done. Works like a charm. Strangely enough, my own wife, reading over my shoulder as I post, notes that I have on occasion actually missed *her* haircut... which let's just call 'the exception that proves the rule'!!)

But I digress.

Anyway, guy gets haircut, no big deal. But then, as the week progresses, I notice another one. And another one. And *another* one. And *ANOTHER* one. Huh?!?

What the hell is going on?!?

Clearly, it's "every guy needs to get a haircut week" and nobody told me! Suddenly, I feel very inadequate. Seeing as how getting a haircut is a bit of a challenge for me.

Does shaving my head count? In the last week and a half, since starting my job, I've shaved my head every friggin' day! That must count for something!! Although, technically, it probably qualifies as a "headscrape" rather than a "haircut".

There must be *some* way that I can participate in the fun. You know, thinking it through... I suppose I do have a *few* options before the week is out:

1) I could put the three-quarter inch guard on my clippers and give the old chest hair a trim!!! Make everything all neat and manageable.

or ...

2) Maybe, with my honey's help, I could do my back! (Although I have a few friends who do that... let's call them "the missing links"... who say that once you start, you have to keep doing it... which is a road I don't think I really want to go down, thanks anyway)

or...

3) Perhaps I could even do my.... um.... no, let's forget that idea. The itch alone, I bet, would be unbearable.

Oh well. I guess I'll just have to stoically suffer it out, in all my sexy baldness.

Stupid Haircut Week.

The Balls That Melt In My Mouth

Is it just me, or does everyone love Whoppers?



Because I sure love them. They're so tasty.

They're also "self-limiting". Meaning, I eat them until I'm so totally sick of them, that I can't touch them for another year!


*************************
On totally another topic, I made a minor but thoroughly unpleasant discovery recently.

The other day, I went up to my tv, popped open the little door that covers the power button and the other controls (which I don't use much, thanks to the ever-wonderful remote)... and discovered an earwig nested there. Yuck.

Tried to flick him away, but only managed to startle him, so he slithered (or *whatever* it is they do) into the corner of the door, and through a gap into the tv.

INTO THE TV.

Aaaaargh. Friggin' earwigs.