Category: Health

News roundup

Hurricane forecast accuracy is reduced, but you’re not supposed to complain about it.

Pride has two faces. 

Alcohol protects against rheumatoid arthritis?  I’ll drink to that !!  Ooh, and further down it says that breastfeeding longer than 13 months protects against rheumatoid arthritis as well!  (May protect, anyway, according to preliminary research…)

Junk DNA isn’t really junk?

Monty Python was wrong…. there is no Universally Funny Joke.

The majority of mammalian genes tick to a circadian clock.

Painting, cleaning, laundry

My chest cold is now to the point where I am rarely coughing – I’d like to thank my poor beleaguered immune system. I still need a good swift slug of DM-D-E to get to sleep and still wake up coughing, but hell, wakeytime was 5 am today and that is really an improvement over nights past.

I painted three of the sills in the plant room (the side by side comparisons with the old ones are quite humorous) and have started a list of stuff to go on freecycle.org (thanks Brother Jim!) and craigslist. I finally managed to subscribe to freecycle, so I’m happy about that too; the last time for the life of me I could not get my password to work and whoever the moderator was turned out to be friendly but not helpful. I have also done my laundry, the touchup paint in the bathroom, vacuumed out the plant room (holy COW it was disgusting) and walked around the house making a list of stuff I can actually do with my back bein’ the way it is and all. Oh, and I read the Serenity comeeks Dax bought Katie (!?).

Kate spent 250 dollars on a ring for Daxus’ 20th birthday. This news will be met by cascades of disgust and disbelief, I’m sure. I justabout threw up when I heard it. It certainly hasn’t changed his attitude towards life, the universe, and being an adult.

I will be calling movers today and finalizing the moving date based on their input… despite my scads of moving karma from when I was living in Toronto, it turns out that I don’t have much here (at least in terms of putting together a truck) and I thought about it and … you know, this is going to be a relatively fast and easy move anyway. I will only have about ten sticks of furniture, a couple of awkward parcels (pictures, hangings, bags o clothes) and the rest is all banker boxes, which make for super easy moving. So I’m going to outsource and then if folks want to volunteer to help me unpack, I’ll go for that.

Katie found the clothes Janice put in the garage. I don’t think she’s ever going to forgive either her dad or Janice for cleaning out her room without bothering to pick up the phone and call her first. When she said that she would rather that Dr. Filk had cleaned out her room (as if….) I knew she was choked.
I am investigating my new computer. I had really good luck with TigerDirect.ca and Katie’s phone (thanks Brother Jim!) so I’m thinking…. put the bait on the hook and get a monster gaming computer. And then I’m thinking. Two fans. Do you really want to be listening to TWO fans? I’m also thinking about a big screen TV, but I’m also thinking… hey, I NEVER watch DVD’s when I’m by myself! Watching stuff is a social activity for me, strangely enough, so unless I want to be looking at a thousand bucks I only use when company’s over, maybe I should pass and keep my recently bumped up credit card in my pocket. It would make more sense to get a decent stereo.
I’ve mentioned Brother Jim twice, and I should post the pix he sent to me … suiting up in a bombproof suit! That’s where he’s working now, a company that makes bombproof suits. I want to ‘shop the last one and title it, Ready for Another Day of Work in Customer Support.

The Dandy Warhols are coming. Oy. I should phone Doug and LE and try to make a date. There will be life after Paul, and it will be interesting.

Keith has entirely fallen in love with the oeuvre of Patrick O’Brien, and why not? He’s an amazing writer.

Cousin Katherine

Aged thirteen, is just this minute having a gallstone removed from her biliary tree.  I light a candle for her swift recovery.  When she has recovered from that they will schedule surgery to get  the rest of it.  She was, by the garbled fifth hand account I got, hours away from pancreatitis and the ghastly grip of the Grim Reaper.  And, of course, she refused to see a doctor until she was just about a goner. And technically she’s First Cousin Once Removed Katherine, which I hasten to add before my mOm sticks it in the comments.

Good night’s sleep

I finally got 7 straight hours of sleep (mind you when I woke up I disgorged about 4 world class loogies… but oh well).  As a result I no longer feel like I’m trailing a dark cloud of bleakness.  And I got some exercise in, so I’m almost, but not quite, perky.

Dr. Filk moves to Victoria on April 29th, where he will finally have access to enough guitars, enough filk, and enough cats.  Trebles all round.  Tom is watching his best helper disappear over the horizon with not much happiness.

Happy 4:20 to those of you who celebrate.  For your enhanced erudition, may I recommend the Wikipedia article on the provenance of this countercultural phenomenon.