Elf Sternberg

Back in August, I ordered a new pair of glasses from a new opthamologist and a new optometrist. When I put them on, the prescription was weirdly uncomfortable, but the technician said, “Give it three weeks. It takes that long for most people to adjust to a new prescription.”

Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s been almost three months and I have not adjusted to this new prescription. The frames are too big for my head and keep slipping down my nose, and while that’s on me you’d think the technician would have advised me on that difficulty during the fitting.

But worse, the grind is just … wrong.

I wear progressives, where the lens has three different zones: the top is for distance and driving, the bottom is for close-up and reading, and the center is “neutral,” with no actual lensing, meant for those distances where my vision is already comfortable focusing.

There is no neutral zone on these glasses.

“Seamless” progressives are made by carefully grinding the glass in a way that creates tiny transition zones between the working zone big enough to avoid the refractory appearance of lines as you used to see on old bifocals. The transition zones on these lenses are huge, almost two millimeters across.

Sometimes when I’m driving there is no zone on these glasses that is better than just taking them off. That’s a terrible experience for any glasses-wearer, and since I’ve been wearing lenes most of my life I know when a fit is good and when it’s not, and these are fundamentally the worst glasses I’ve ever owned.

I’m fortunate in that I can probably afford a new pair, from my old lab, out-of-pocket. But this is just annoying as hell. I’m wearing lenses two prescriptions old (getting the new prescription was occasioned by my dropping my previous pair, shattering one lens), and that’s still a better experience than wearing the new ones.

Not gonna name names until I've given the current lab a chance to fix the problems. I can afford new frames, but these lenses are just horrible.

It has been a day for precious bodily fluids. ( Medical TMI )

On the other hand, I will say that the UW Medical Clinic's new Surgery Pavilion, where the urology examination happened, is one hell of a lovely building. I don't normally like steel and glass as primary architectural themes-- take one look at the Seattle Library with it's cold ugliness and you'll see why-- but the spiral staircase was encased in white, frosted glass that felt calm and clean (good things for a hospital), and the exterior walls were floor-to-ceiling clear which brought in a healthy dose of sunlight and gave cheerful views of the green garden. The doors were made with pale pine and steel-framed glass, and everything was labeled in an obvious way. Kudos to the architect.

Then, this evening, after getting home from being poked and prodded, I tried to make coleslaw and hot dogs, and damn near cut my left index finger off when the knife slipped. I haven't done that in a decade. Fortunately, it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been-- I lost a little skin, but some antibiotic ointment and a bandage later, and I'm fine.

When I was putting Kouryou-chan to bed this evening, I found a sheet from a coloring book on the floor, and on one side were cute and fuzzy bugs, and on the other was a crowd of girls all surrounding one with a certain fruit printed on her clothing. "Oh look," said I. "It's Strawberry ShortSlut and friends!" That just about cracked up Omaha.

And under cool things done with Linux, I can now play-- and finish!-- Unreal under Linux. Huzzah! I'm debating spending the $15 for Cedega, which might (might!) allow me to run things like Grand Theft Auto, Tron, and BloodRayne under Linux as well.