More and more people are living past 100, hell 110 isn’t as impossible as we thought. I can’t remember if the official record is 120 or not. My grandfather living this long wasn’t impossible. He barely got sick, he didn’t eat very much (oddly, low food consumption has been tied to longevity according to the podcast Stuff You Should Know) and he was a tough son of a bitch too. Unfortunately, cancer took him out in his early Nineties; his passing killed the myth about being too old to contract cancer for me.
I do miss him. Like my maternal grandmother, I wish the age gap between us were smaller or I had access to a time machine. Communicating with him when he was younger, more coherent would’ve been great since I now have decent follow-up questions about living through the Roaring Twenties, pre-WWI America and what did people really think about the Federal government before Reagan demonized it.
I believe his pranks would be less vicious too.
I’ll close with a classic he pulled off when Brian and me were kids.
When we were still in the lower end of grade school, Grandpa often gave us candy at the start of his visits to our house. Being the oldest, he handed me an Almond Joy. I was like, “Sweet! Grandpa rocks!” (I don’t remember the exact Seventies slang I used to use). Grandpa then said, “For you Brian, I have some rare white peanuts.” I thought, whoa, this sounds interesting and oddly I was uncharacteristically not jealous (I was nine or 10 at the time). He handed Brian a little bag of styrofoam peanuts. Obviously my younger brother wasn’t amused and began crying. Grandpa began to chuckle. My curiosity turned to bewilderment. Mom had to quell Brian as Grandpa apologized. He had another candy bar so I didn’t have to share. I think Brian remained a bit stung. I’ll have to ask him in our next conversation if he remembers the prank.
Oh, I do wish he lived to meet my cats. Molly would’ve liked him, Miette, eventually.
Things are a little slow on the site because we’re hanging out at my brother-in-law’s place in Agglieland (aka College Station, TX). It’s an OK place, rather similar to most college towns. Houston is the closest city but it isn’t very close, about 100 miles to the southeast. The main thing is hanging out, playing games and joking with the kids. All my old material is new to them!
I definitely have a list of questions for my friend Lester regarding his card game Invasion of the Saucer People. I want to make sure we’re following the rules correctly since the Solar System didn’t fare well in our three games: one stalemate (two planets lost), one loss (three planets lost) and one extinction of humanity (all four planets conquered).
Next up, teaching them Basic D&D which will also prove to Somara, I still got it contrary to some other players I had a falling out with.
To the diehards, many of us knew the answer already for most spacecraft but it’s debatable with Star Wars‘ physics. Regardless, with fiction, everything moves at the speed of plot. The distance the Galactica jumps is incorrect because the book The Science of Battlestar Galactica stated the “red line” is about five light years.
I guess the author(s) didn’t want to investigate some other well-known franchises: the Whitestar from Babylon 5, Maia from Farscape, Discovery from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Red Dwarf, the Sulacco or Nostromo from the Alien movies or the Yamato from Star Blazers.
This was done with a relatively cheap (in a good way) piece of software called Wordify from the App Store.
It’s pretty simple to operate. You take a picture, decide which words you want used (I haven’t found an upper limit yet), pick the color via RGB sliders and select the font (size and style). Then watch it compile the photo out of the words. When it’s finished, the final artwork is opened in Preview as a PDF.
For my first official Wordify Portrait, I took a favorite photo of Molly, picked a color closest to her fur and inserted the lyrics to Tom Jones’ “What’s New Pussycat?” There was some trial and error until I got the desired result.
This memorable day was yesterday and I wanted to get it in there due to the other sad event around Chicago. Paul’s antics during the wedding certainly made the movie So, I Married an Axe Murderer forever associated with Brian’s best man.
Since their anniversary is on a Monday, I guess they either celebrated the weekend before or they’ll go with the upcoming three-day, extended weekend.
According to the ever reliable Internet, the present for 18 years is…porcelain. I think I’ll go with a gift card to a nice restaurant Brian, Linda, Nick and Anna can enjoy.
It was pretty sad to read the news via Paul’s Facebook page about his father passing away this morning.
However, I want to share a few quick anecdotes about my interactions with Eugene as a celebration of his life.
What’s with the “Doomsday” thing in his name? It was often the nickname Paul gave his father when we were at Marquette because the gentleman had a rather gloomy or negative outlook on life. Having grandparents who also lived through the Depression and WWII (as adults, Eugene would’ve been a kid to young adult then), I was familiar with the attitude…the world is out to get you; poverty is just around the corner; and back in the day you couldn’t get X to save your life, never mind X wasn’t invented until 1955. The man was a product of his time, especially when I heard his rationale about why Paul couldn’t live in an apartment after our mandatory dorm days were ending. I swore Eugene cribbed this twisted logic from my grandmother.
Contrary to the “Doomsday” moniker, Eugene was an alright guy in my interactions with him. The Southsider accent was rather amusing especially when you heard it giving Paul advice on being careful wit dem crazy girls at school, remember to use one of dem tings, ya’ know, dem rubber tings. It wasn’t funny at the Silder reception while I was trying to use the bathroom, thanks to having White Castle for lunch, and Eugene was searching for somebody named Wally…Hey! Hey! Wally! You in dere? It’s funny now and I did get my deposit back on the tux.
Thanks for the ride to O’Hare that fateful Sunday morning in 1986 Mr. Silder! You made my first genuine hangover memorable and manageable.
Paul announced the wake and funeral being this upcoming Thursday and Friday respectively. Drop him a line should you know Paul, he’d appreciate the kind words.
We knew Princess had kittens a few weeks ago because her bulge disappeared and there are signs of nursing around her abdominal areas. How many…not sure. Cats can handle up to six at a time with their physiology. Given Princess’ past history I’m going with four. The neighbors may have wised up by locking Princess up, forcing her to give birth in their shed/chicken coop, thus they don’t or can’t wander far.
Eventually this will fail. Kittens grow rapidly, cats are natural escape artists and their innate curiosity can’t be suppressed.
Case in point, Somara heard desperate mewing outside the window and I found Balder! He is the feistiest child of Princess ever as he greeted me with hissing. I gained his trust quickly by calming him down.
I hope to see Balder again soon and name his siblings. Big sister Neffie likes him which is demonstrated by her not attacking him on sight.
Despite being rather sick, I could muster enough energy to check the scores up north in OKC where the semi-finals moved to after two games here.
I wasn’t terribly surprised by the outcome nor was I thrilled. I figured the Barons had a chance to win the series because they were very aggressive offensively during the opening games. The last time the Stars were eliminated, they went down in OT against the Admirals. I was glad my team left nothing on the bench. Not the case with the Barons, the Stars were spanked every night.
What a crappy ending to a promising season since they took the South Division but I sensed there was trouble on the horizon.
Jeremy always dismisses my complaint about the Stars’ bad habit of letting the opposition score first. It’s not a stat thing, it’s a psych-out thing. Hockey is a low-scoring sport and making the initial goal is like drawing first blood in boxing.
The losses near the end. Again, I was told don’t sweat it, they need to have the important players rest up, give the lesser dudes some ice time. Agreed but not every first-stringer got the evening off and to me it spelled trouble if injuries happened and/or key scorers got snakebit; Jamie Benn came to the rescue in 2010 on this issue. Limping across the finish line while maintaining first is a sign of vulnerability to the lower-ranked opponents to exploit. Admittedly, the Barons focused on speed all season while the Stars’ new coach Desjardins stated he was bigger on defense.
Jeremy explained to me why Dallas couldn’t send some of the talent back; there’s a limit on how many transfers can be exercised and the NHL trade deadline stranded others. It doesn’t help that Big D is rebuilding under its new owner (and now a new GM). The Floridian move to keep Eakin and Dillon in Dallas when there was little hope those Stars were going to be doing anything after mid-April. NHL ice time is great, winning a title is better. Eakin’s goals could’ve leveled the playing field against the Barons somewhat.
And so, to kick off the fifth season, we do get to raise our second banner in four years. I would’ve preferred three (divisional, conference and the title). It’ll be bittersweet too, many of the vets who helped will likely be gone. The less-experienced guys are equally iffy since I agree with some, they’re trade bait for Dallas.
Hockey is semi-officially over for me as I wash my jerseys and put them away until late September.
Who am I cheering for with the Calder Cup? Not the Barons obviously, the Oilers’ owner is an extortionist and Oklahoma’s government is competing with the rest of the Deep South and Great Plains for the National Embarrassment. I can only name two immediate things from Oklahoma: James Garner and Will Rogers. Since the Marlies will likely go down, it’s the Griffins.
With the NHL, whoever eliminates the Blackhawks and Penguins. It’ll be in vain since I’m confident Bettman will try to rig the Cup to be between them to make NBC happy. They had good seasons, abbreviated seasons mind you, I doubt they’d be in such great shape if they had to go 82 games. We’ll see. I just remember what poor sports Chicagoans are, especially when they lose. I do applaud one thing, I don’t recall Chicagoans burning down their city like Canadians.
One semi-productive thing I have done while fighting the urge to scratch my skin off was finally read a nice instructional book on WordPress. I never gave it much thought about there being a plug-in that could convert my site for mobile/iOS devices. With a little time and effort, voila! Picayune stays in “computer mode” with my iPad though. It doesn’t seem to be determined by OS version, probably the MAC address stating the hardware, I’m guessing but I don’t think it’s a deal breaker given the screen size and bandwidth abilities.
Tell me if you like this better and if it would lead you to leave a comment more often.
If so, it only took Modern Western Science about a year to get it right. I don’t really blame nor bear any ill will toward the doctors/PAs involved. They were all trying their best based upon the clues my body gave via blood, via testing and how well I could describe the symptoms. I admit to getting frustrated since not being closer to 100 percent well (some weeks, getting to 85 was a struggle) messed with my goals, plans and got me lectures from my immediate supervisor; good thing I didn’t contract cancer is all I have left to say regarding the latter.
Over a week agoI was stoked about the Apple-based doctor getting me a prescription for sulfameth to attack a rather impairing sinus infection. Finally, the doctors are giving me something effective instead of crap bordering on homeopathic remedies. First dose on Friday night, nothing. Next two on Saturday, I was feeling fair until late afternoon but figured I had a long day that had me in high gear shortly after I got out of bed, the same lecturing boss requested me to come in to mentor a new person for a couple hours. I wouldn’t call it volunteering based upon his tone. Watching the Stars game bordered on being a chore as I felt like I was backsliding or contracting a relapse of the flu/a cold. Another two on Sunday, took it easy and caught The Great Gatsby (fifth attempt), skipped doing anything else bordering on strenuous yet fatigue was coming on. Monday was agonizing, still I kept taking the sulfa (as doctors call it because the drug belongs to a family of medications under this prefix) figuring recuperation was around the corner once the sinus issue was eliminated. No dice. I had now acquired joint pains (the knees, throughout both feet, my left hand and right index finger); my running routine was a weak suspect; chills/sweating, slight fever; plus the cherry on top…concentration issues. The workday couldn’t end any faster as I ate dinner and collapsed early. Tuesday morning was a bust along with the next few days.
I was stumped, pissed and worried. Only when I wasn’t fighting off 101-102°F/38-38.5°C fever bouts, the sweats followed by the chills and wondering if gremlins kept smacking my sore joints during the little sleep I received. These continued to feed the flu/cold relapse theory until Somara noticed how bright red my skin was. How right she was, I resembledDejah Thorisand realized I had been scratching my limbs more frequently. Penicillin gave me a similar rash in 1996 so I asked Somara to use her Google Fu, find out if this sulfameth had worse side effects than I was warned about. Didn’t take long since it has a whopper of a list:
Diarrhea – No
Fever – Yes
Chills – Yes
Swollen glands (lymph nodes) – Yes (ouch!)
Body aches (joint pain) – Yes
Flu symptoms – Yes if the above is any hint
Sores in the mouth and throat – No, phew!
New or worsening cough – Yes, sadly as per Somara’s observations
Pale skin – No, red/sunburned-like skin
Feeling light-headed – Yes, a couple times
Rapid heart rate – No
Trouble concentrating – Yes, at work but I figure that’s expected when illin’
Easy bruising – No
Unusual bleeding (nose, mouth, vagina, or rectum) – No!
Purple or red pinpoint spots under the skin – Yes, red
Severe tingling or numbness – No
Slow heart rate – No
Weak pulse – No
Muscle weakness – No
Nausea – No but I did hurl one night after having some fast food
Upper stomach pain – No
Itching – Yes thanks to the red spots
Loss of appetite – Maybe, I barely eat when ill these days
Dark urine – No
Clay-colored stools – Hell No!
Jaundice – No
Urinating less than usual or not at all – No
Hallucinations – No
Seizure (convulsions) – No
Low blood sugar – No, mine jumps to borderline diabetic levels when I’m sick
Any skin rash – Yes, see red spots again
I can play connect the dots on my inner arm
My outer arm is no slouch on the rash action. It’s like the Milky Way in red.
Quite a list this sulfameth has. As we went over it before seeing a doctor at Austin Regional Clinic (ARC) due to the Apple one being booked solid, I wondered, “Why is sulfameth used again? Thirty-one possible, ugly side effects requiring a physician visit and I had a third of them!” I was relieved to discover I wasn’t a freak after a friend told me his ex-wife had similar issues with this drug.
The ARC doctor got a good look at me, examined my skin up close and she was pretty convinced sulfameth screwed me just from the rash alone. Still took my blood (three vials) to make sure, no word on the results.
Currently, the remedy is prednisone to kill the rash. It’s a steroid to jump start the process. The remaining symptoms? Joint pain started to recede when I stopped taking the sulfa. I had one more fever/chill struggle Friday evening, my temperature has been under 99°F/37.5°C afterwards. Lymph nodes don’t smart nor bulge as much. Here was the downside…prednisone must be taken in the morning, otherwise it keeps you awake all night. I had to fight the itching Friday night/Saturday morning. Waiting sucked but the results paid off, the rash retreated significantly in 12-plus hours.
What about the ongoing issue I’ve for months, coughing? It has declined! Ditto with the super-annoying drainage.
I won’t break out the champagne anytime soon. Not until I have a week without all the crap I’ve endured as per 2013 Malaise. I do feel some minor vindication. All along I just wanted the doctors to give me something to boost my immune system. In 1999, it collapsed to the point of an HIV discussion being necessary; my white-blood cell count was a three, it should be four when well, way higher if you’re sick. All the other drugs thrown at this situation have failed miserably (too many to list) and it took a horrible allergic reaction to put everything back on track. At least the sinus infection is cured.
I scored this personally coveted pair on sale through the Converse online store the same day I bought the customized Catwoman set. These go great with my Grinches!
Oddly these shoes came with the easiest laces I’ve ever rethreaded. My favorite observation while wearing them was how it looked like I was wearing illustrations. It did from my perspective.
The rantings of the nut job known as Alex Jones has gained attention thanks to his public meltdown on CNN and the Boston bombers being listeners. Sometimes you’ll see bumper stickers for this inanity around Austin because he is on the radio, oddly in the ‘Big Gubmint’ part of the FM spectrum.
I was really disappointed to see Jones’ paranoid writings being distributed at a chain restaurant I enjoy. Sure the Austin Chronicle can be found there and their Liberal bias is well known. That would be true of the editorial and news sections. However, over 80% of the AusChron is non-essential, rather apolitical content so few object to it. Besides, it’s free unlike the Austin American-Statesman, aka the PR arm of the (uncontrolled) growth is good for Austin movement. Just substitute growth for sprawl and the One Percent for Austin, then you know what the Statesman perspective is.
Anyway…
The tagline of “And the War on Reality” is comical. Which reality would this be? There’s many paranoid delusions of all political stripes to go with! Given Jones’ bluster, it’s probably the “New World Order who will take away me guns!” version.
I have my skepticism and doubt in government too. The difference between Jones and me is I know the problem lies in human nature not a monolithic conspiracy. I hated George W Bush very much (still do, his library at SMU is an affront to higher learning everywhere), I won’t deny it. He was the worst president in recent history and pending an alien invasion, he may be judged the worst ever. Yet I never compared him to Hitler or his regime to the Fascists. There were definitely aggressive attempts to squelch dissent on top of some rather unconstitutional decisions, torture namely. Choosing Hitler was inaccurate and lazy. Bush and his intellectually-challenged nature are more akin to the numerous inept monarchs of Europe, England’s Charles II is my immediate choice.
Seeing Bush and his cronies as a cunning, Emperor Palpatine level organization would be too flattering to Dick Cheney.
Alex Jones caters to people with serious chips on their shoulders who suffer from stunted emotional/mental development. Their higher numbers around Austin are an unfortunate side effect with more Liberally inclined communities. Sometimes, you get former Liberals-Moderates whose brains go off the rails and/or get sucked into the empty rhetoric of Ron Paul.
As long as they’re not shooting at anyone from their Dale Gribblesque compounds, let them have their silly fantasies of a Red Dawn invasion. Few of them vote since they see this as futile, prefer to just bitch instead or fear the polling station is actually a DNA-gathering facility. Having worked alongside a couple, I vote “all of the above.”
I’m going to let you mentally chew on that name for a bit…
Cue up the Jeopardy music …
do dee do do, do dee do …
wump wump…
Give up? John was the drummer in the Doors. He was in Austin last week to promote his latest book, The Doors Unhinged. What it is exactly about, I am not sure so I won’t guess but I will read it. We were very fortunate too. John is only visiting 16 locations.
Now those who’ve known me since Marquette University through the Nineties are thinking, “But Steve, you despise Classic Rock!” Well…I’ve had a reconciliation with most of it. Turning off the radio in my car helped immensely. The problem wasn’t always the songs, it was having to hear the same few ad nauseum. Besides, John is a pretty upright guy as I’ll explain in the next couple sentences. The Doors’ legacy much like the Beatles stuff requires a unanimous vote of ex-members on what will be licensed or marketed. John feels he has enough money, hence he often vetoes attempts to have Doors’ hits’ rights whored out to commercials. I can imagine the Kingsford Charcoal people have wanted to use “Light My Fire” for decades and champagne maker Cristal could find a way to integrate “Crystal Ship” with terrible Hip Hop. There was also a reunion tour with Ian Astbury as the singer he eight-sixed. John is right about this one, Jim Morrison is pretty dead, calling themselves the Doors is misleading.
In short, John is a person who uses his Rock n’ Roll powers for good like Jack White and Dave Grohl; the latter two via the promotion of other bands/acts.
I was rather excited to meet him because he represents a key touchstone in Western Music and Pop Culture. Lately I’ve been piecing together little history dinner/discussions for my friend John. A while back, we covered the British Invasion…OK, it was more along the lines of lectured and he asked questions. I cribbed the seeds from an excellent article from the Onion‘s AV Club, then expanded it. John oddly was kept away from most traditional Classic Rock until a later point in his life. He is well-versed in Jazz, Blues and Motown thanks to his father.
My point though? The Doors were a key American band that helped pluck the Rock n’ Roll crown away from the British as the Sixties were ending. Afterwards, it has been shared with neither country having exclusivity to the title. By no means were the Doors solely responsible. This was achieved with other American acts:
The Beach Boys (Pet Sounds primarily)
The Rascals
Jefferson Airplane
The Lovin’ Spoonful
The Byrds (Sweetheart of the Rodeo is the foundation to what the Eagles perfected for better or worse)
The Doors stand out above most acts I listed for numerous reasons but if I were forced to pick the strongest, I would say it was their more unique sound amongst the Beatles/Stones imitators. This explains their longevity, deeper hit list (much is debatable) and lucrative (by today’s standards) back catalog sales. More people under 30 know songs by the Doors while The Rascals would get a puzzled lookI do have two minor, personal connections to the Doors through their album Waiting for the Sun, this has the hit “Hello, I Love You.” First, two of my favorite Eighties acts have covered the song: Adam Ant and Eurythmics. The former’s version is pretty close to the original, Adam just added horns to it; the latter’s pace is a tad jarring for most listeners. Second, when I was a teenager and started to co-opt my parents’ record collection for stuff to listen to, I couldn’t believe my mother owned Waiting. Her Rock tastes were more pedestrian since she stopped collecting the Beatles after Sgt. Pepper and I think every aspect of the Sixties® passed her by. The day I recognized the album, I recall Mom got rather defensive and said someone gave it to her as a gift. Maybe she feared I thought she tried smoking weed.
On to my interaction with John. It was cordial and memorable. Obviously I wore my Doors Chucks to show him. I wanted to make sure the shoes received his blessing. John’s response (paraphrasing), “I’m good with those. They didn’t involve licensing a song, it’s not deodorant.” What a relief. I was willing to honor his wishes if he wanted them destroyed.
Now his book is in my huge reading queue. I may score an E version because I had a minor incident damaging the Simon Pegg bio; it’s 99% alright, I managed to remove the ruined, thankfully, unimportant page. I’m sure there will be a review in the next couple years at the pace I read.
I’ll close with a great Kids in the Hall bit someone reminded me about.
Still trying to get through what has been dubbed the ‘2013 Malaise.’ I visited the doctor after two weeks of ‘nasal steroids’ but couldn’t shake the sinus headache; feels like a butter knife stabbing me in the upper left brow. A neti pot provided some relief, about as much as I was getting from a hot shower…the better feeling lasts an hour.
So the doctor decided I certainly have a nasty infection (well, duh) and now azithrimician (sic) is no longer effective (thanks Evolution!), I am on this stuff I never heard of. They’re pretty big pills too. It has the weirdest side effect I’ve encountered, avoid prolonged or excessive sunlight. Well, I do work in the tech industry, that shouldn’t be difficult given the troglodyte nature of my profession. Some co-workers practically hiss a la Dracula when you open the blinds.
This better work. The doctor said I may be taking it for a month. Blech!
