After reading a great comment on my blog post 11 benefits of having a prosthetic eye covering, I decided to check out Paul’s site. I rather enjoyed reading the post, Adapting to Monocular Vision. It would have been really helpful to have read this immediately after I lost sight in my right eye. I would have been more prepared by knowing what to expect. I can relate to almost everything mentioned, which shouldn’t be surprising considering it was written for people like me. It’s nice to know I’m not alone.

The most frustrating thing for me was putting ketchup on hot dogs. It’s incredibly difficult to line up the ketchup bottle with the hot dog. It took me three attempts: first time I missed the plate, second and third time I missed the bun. My sister was watching and I could tell she was quite amused by the way she was rolling around on the floor laughing hysterically.

The other cool/scary thing is stairs. Certain stair cases can actually look flat from the perspective of looking down them. If there are no shadows on the stairs or they have some sort of patterned tiles on them, I can’t tell exactly where each step begins and ends. Needless to say, I always use the railing, at least to start. Going up stairs isn’t usually a problem; falling up the stairs is much less painful than falling down them.

The worst thing is bashing my head or shoulder on things because I don’t see things on my right side. It’s very painful and worst of all, you don’t see it coming–literally. There have been several door frames I wanted to punish for attacking me for no good reason.

 

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I’m very curious if my pool playing abilities have improved due to having one eye. I’m pretty sure they haven’t. I thought my mini-golf skills had improved, but my two-eyed wife can still beat me.

The tip about sitting at the table in restaurants was interesting. It’s very annoying to be talking to someone sitting beside you at a table, because you literally have to turn your entire head to see them. Of course, this will look rather strange to the rest of the people at your table.  My preferred table seat is right-most corner, preferably the opposite side that the server would come from.

The other fun thing is not noticing someone approach. For some reason, I set up my home office so that my right side is facing the door. Not good. My wife scares the living daylights out of me, albeit unintentionally, on a regular basis. I have offered to buy her tap shoes but she declines.

I’ve been using good old lefty for almost five years now and I’m getting pretty used to it. I can now successfully put ketchup on a hot dog, and I can pour liquids into a glass 95% of the time. Bashing my head on things is not fun and getting foreign objects trapped underneath my prosthesis is incredibly painful, but all in all, I don’t mind having one eye. Could be worse, I could have no eyes at all. 🙂

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McGriddle

McGriddleIf I only had 6 months left to live, I’d be eating a McGriddle every morning until I kicked the bucket. The draw back, of course, would be that I’d have to get up before 11 a.m. (why doesn’t McDonald’s have all-day breakfast?), but I’m learning that it’s a lot easier to get up before noon if you go to bed before 2 a.m. The wife doesn’t let me stay up late anymore. 🙁 Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that the McGriddle breakfast sandwich from McDonald’s is amazing, and the reason I don’t eat one everyday is because I’d like to live past the age of 30.

For some of you folks who haven’t tried the wonderful yet potentially deadly McGriddle because either you don’t get up that early or you don’t want to die that early, a McGriddle consists of the following:

  • standard McDonald’s slab of scrambled eggs
  • bacon or sausage
  • cheese
  • 2 maple syrup flavoured hotcake-like things

The Bacon & Egg McGriddle contains 560 calories, 32 g fat, 1290 mg sodium and 16 g sugar. It constitutes approximately half of one’s daily fat and sodium intake and almost 90% of their daily cholesterol. Interesting.

The damage to your body aside, I think there’s an important question we should be asking… why don’t they offer a McGriddle with bacon and sausage?

The McGriddle is a remarkable product of McDonald’s heart attack engineering. I love having all of my favourite breakfast foods wrapped up in a single package. It’s a beautiful thing.

I never used to be a fan of McDonald’s breakfast, but I’ve come to appreciate the extra artificial flavour McDonald’s premade frozen ingredients give to the already unhealthy foods.

The McGriddle will never replace my Hungry Man breakfast at Madelyn’s Diner in Stratford, Ontario (2 eggs, farmer’s sausage, fried potatoes, 2 pancakes with toast and coffee for around $9). But it sure gives me an incentive to go out shopping with my wife on Saturday mornings.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the McGriddle. I also realize how horrible it is for you. Should I never eat one then? No. I just won’t have one everyday.

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Visa but not MasterCard

Visa but not MasterCardFor the first time in my life, I have actually taken somewhat of an interest in the Olympics. I installed the 2010 Olympics App on my iPhone and tracked the men’s ice hockey event. I never actually watched an entire game, mind you, but I used the app to keep track of Canada’s status. That was pretty much the extent of my patriotism, I must admit. When it comes to Olympic branded merchandise, I still could never bring myself to spend good, hard-earned money on what I consider very overpriced souveniers. For those who are not like me, however, purchasing Olympic merchandise can be difficult, if not impossible.

We don’t take MasterCard!

My sister, who herself takes little interest in the Olympics, wanted to buy her husband an official Olympic toque from the vancouver2010.com website for his birthday, since he is an avid fan. There was only one problem. They wouldn’t accept her MasterCard. In fact, the vancouver2010.com website does not accept any form of payment other than Visa.

When my sister told me this over the phone, I couldn’t believe it. So I went to the website myself and sure enough, there was a Visa logo with the caption “Visa Payment Only” and the following message:

In recognition of Visa’s long-standing support of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, we proudly accept only Visa cards on vancouver2010.com.

I was astonished. What was the Olympic committee thinking? “Oh well, the world’s already blown $2.5 billion on us, so let’s try not to take any more of their money by limiting our sales of merchandise to Visa card holders only”? Isn’t that discrimination? There must be a law about that someplace.

I hate fees

Personally, I refuse to get a Visa because I am unaware of any Visa card that does not charge monthly or yearly fees. I love my MasterCard, the balance of which I pay off every month. I pay no fees, no interest, and they even give me free groceries. But apparently, the Olympic powers that be have something against my kind, because they won’t let us buy their merchandise online unless we switch our credit card allegiances.
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Proud to be stupid

My favourite part is the phrase stating, “We proudly accept only Visa.” Apparently, they think that by adding the word “proudly” they can justify the stupidity of the “only”. My interpretation of their “proud” statement: “We’re too lazy to implement more than one form of online payment system, so if you don’t have a Visa you’re out of luck.” I wonder if PayPal turned them down…

Visa is better!

I’d love to see the business model that supports the turning away of paying customers on the basis of not having a Visa card. Someone please explain this insanity to me. Am I missing something? The only company benefitting from this is Visa. No one else. I wonder what kind of dough they had to cough up to be the exclusive payment method of the Olympics. It must have been more than the estimated total merchandise sales from all the American Express, MasterCard and other credit card holders of the world combined.

Oh well. Now that the Olympics are over, we can all get back to using our inferior credit cards again.

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My prosthesis

  1. Contact lenses cost half as much.
  2. You can say cool things like, “I was getting my eye painted.”
  3. If you get something in your eye you can take it out.
  4. Cool nicknames such as One Eyed John.
  5. Great excuse for breaking things.
  6. Lack of depth perception cures your fear of heights.
  7. You can choose your own eye color.
  8. You can paint pictures on your eye.
  9. Your eye can turn upside down.
  10. Lack of depth perception causes you to see crazy things.
  11. You can frighten people with it.

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