TV versus reality

We all know that food advertised on TV rarely looks the same in reality. Believe it or not, the same is true for cat food, as I learned this week.  I decided to try a can or two of the “luxury” Fancy Feast wet food (well, I didn’t try it, the cats did). Here’s the comparison:

Here’s the official photo of Fancy Feast Yellowfin Tuna Tuscany In A Savory Sauce With Long Grain Rice And Garden Greens (!)

From the ads

Here’s the actual stuff I put in their bowls this morning:

Actual food

Maybe if I served it in a while bowl with a little garnish it would look more appealing?

8 vials of blood

So a week ago I saw the rheumatologist about my foot.  He asked me a million questions, inspected my foot, and told me that he didn’t think there was anything in his area of work that I had (no lupus – great!).  Here’s what was weird… he showed me the MRI report and it said that I do have tendonitis in my foot and ankle plus some mild bursitis in the heel. Why the podiatry resident last week said that it was normal was beyond me.

Seeing how there’s no specific cause of this injury, the rheumatologist set me up for blood work. A lot of it.  They took eight vials of blood out of my arm!  The test results are all in and, at least in my opinion, don’t tell me anything that we didn’t already know.  The only things that came back positive were two tests for inflammation and another for muscle injury.

So, still no real news. I’m thinking of going to the UCSF Foot and Ankle Clinic to get some better answers than I’m getting at Kaiser.

Wouldn’t you know it…

The MRI of my foot came back negative… I guess that’s both good and bad. Next stop: rheumatology.

Finally got my MRI

After months of jumping through hoops at Kaiser, tonight I finally got an MRI of my foot and ankle. They spent about a half an hour scanning my foot, and even with ear plugs, the machine was incredibly noisy. I was definitely nervous during the test, and I was only partially in the “tube”.  I can imagine that I’d really be uncomfortable if my head was in there!

Anyhow, I should have results by the beginning of next week. Not sure I want them to find something, but it would be nice to have an explanation as to why my foot has been acting funny for the last six months.

Foot puzzle, part 3

Not surprisingly, my biopsy came back negative. The dermatologist thought that maybe rheumatology may know, so my tour of Kaiser continues. More importantly, I finally got the thumbs up for an MRI, so I should have one scheduled in the next few days. I’m thinking that I’ll finally get a diagnosis after that is done. Stay tuned.

Funny Flame photo

I was having fun with the multiple exposure feature on the Olympus E-620 and thought I’d share this photo of Flame. Kind of reminds me of Star Wars or something… like he’s communicating from somewhere else.  Don’t worry, I didn’t vaporize him or anything like that!

Foot puzzle, part 2

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the strange problem I’ve been having with my foot. Today I went to the dermatologist, hoping for some answers. I didn’t get any — at least not yet.  Much to my surprise, he wanted to take a biopsy of the area of my foot and ankle that’s discolored under the skin. That procedure took less than 5 minutes, and I didn’t feel a thing (thanks, novocaine!).

Unfortunately, now I have to wait a week for results, and even then, who knows if it’ll provide any leads. Everyone’s still holding off on blood work and and an MRI, which seems ridiculous to me… but we’ll see what happens next week, I guess.

Color and reality

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about color recently.  Not because I particularly want to, but because it’s been giving me some major headaches.  The problem I’m having is figuring out what is “real”.

For example, let’s say I take a photo of something with a digital camera.  I transfer that photo over to my computer and then put it on my website.  The problem arises when I compare the images in various ways:  on the camera’s LCD, in Photoshop, in Safari, in Firefox, in iPhoto, or on a PC — it never looks the same twice.  I know this has to do with color profiles and whether the software you’re using pays any attention to it.  For example, Safari pays attention to color profiles, while Firefox (by default) does not.

And here’s something else I don’t really understand.  My monitor is calibrated, so why should there be so much of a difference between sRGB and “monitor color”?

At some point I start to wonder: what did this object I photographed actually look like?   I get so caught up with the differences that sometimes I can’t remember.