So, the week commenced, and various pains ensued.

First, the 'SciFi' channel's Saturday night movies. Sands of Oblivion seemed to offer some promise. A sort of The Mummy rip-off, with Cecil B. DeMille wrapped into it, it purported to be the story of an ancient demon transported antiquities looted from Egypt to be used in a movie set.

There is much (much) I could say in this movie's disfavor, but I'll just say that any movie? That has the nerve to offer, during the climactic battle, the sight of the 'hero' doing battle with paint people who are wafted from the walls of an ancient tomb? Should never have been made.

Seriously. Paint people. The demon waves his hand, the essentially two-dimensional layers of paint peel themselves from the walls, and they fling themselves at the hero. To defend himself? He smacks them back up against a wall or stomps them flat against the ground. This seems to be sufficient to defeat them.

Next up was Boa vs. Python, a movie that offered promise only because of David Hewlitt's name at the top of the credits. He was good, even better than you might expect, given the entirely ridiculous dialogue he was given to deliver. The movie itself? Was so entirely lame that eventually I found myself rooting for the giant snakes to eat everyone. (Except David.)

I broke a tooth. Fortunately it was one upon which I've already had a root canal, so no pain ensued. But. I had an interview scheduled for Monday.

I'm not going to say that I didn't make the cut for the job because I looked like a backwoods hillbilly or something, but I suspect that, my graceful explanation aside, it had something to do with the matter.

Today? Was my dentist's appointment. A mild-mannered lecture or two later and I find myself more-or-less committed to about $6k worth of dental work. But first, we're fixing the current problem.

Oral surgery ensued. It was as quick and painful as anyone could wish (meaning very and absolutely) but that doesn't change the fact that right now my dentist is home diving into roast beef or lasagna and I'm sitting here packed with gauze and thinking it might be easier just to go to bed now and give up on the day.

I've spent the last five hours thinking longingly of all the food I should have eaten this morning, wishing desperately that I was allowed to brush my teeth, and hallucinating about sucking down giant glasses of ice water.

Also? The bill? $1,600 and change. For the temporary dental appliance I have to wear until the extraction site is healed up enough for a permanent solution.

That hurt.