Dr. Bob on renewable resources

http://www.thebody.com/Forums/AIDS/SafeSex/Current/Q182852.html

I love him. He's hilarious.

Masturbation is normal and healthy. So just "grab your dick and double click" onto a more "stimulating" Web site and enjoy your home entertainment center without worry! Wanking is way more fun (and healthier) than worrying! In fact I may just take a sticky-fingers pause that refreshes right now!

Dr. Bob

Most awesome thing I read today

I was poking around, reading things about Upton Sinclair, who was pretty interesting, when I found a reference to Barnarr Macfadden, a fellow who invented a system called Physical Culture and founded a line of magazines, including True Romances. I did a quick search on him and found these choice quotes from this link:

Macfadden made an unsuccessful attempt to found a religion, “cosmotarianism”, based on physical culture. He claimed that his regimen would enable him to reach the age of 150.

He died of a urinary tract infection.

Macfadden contributed to many articles and books including Superb Virility of Manhood (1904)

But this is my favorite, dueling references.

Fishbein, M., The Medical Follies: An Analysis of the Foibles of Some Healing Cults, including Osteopathy, Homeopathy, Chiropractic, and the Electronic Reactions of Abrams, with Essays on the Anti-Vivisectionists, Health Legislation, Physical Culture, Birth Control, and Rejuvenation, Boni & Liveright, (New York), 1925.

Hale, A.R., "These Cults": An Analysis of the Foibles of Dr. Morris Fishbein's "Medical Follies" and an Indictment of Medical Practice in General, with a Non-Partisan Presentation of the Case for the Drugless Schools of Healing, Comprising Essays on Homeopathy, Osteopathy, Chiropractic, The Abrams Method, Vivisection, Physical Culture, Christian Science, Medical Publicity, The Cost of Hospitalization and State Medicine, National Health Foundation, (New York), 1926.

Totally awesome.

Worrisome stuff on the horizon

Cullen and I went to the nephrologist today for his followup. We left with instructions for enough blood tests to require about eight vials of blood, a urinalysis and we're supposed to call when he's over his stuffy nose so we can schedule a kidney biopsy.

She said that he needs to have it on a day when he can rest the next day, and resting doesn't mean washing the car or he'll end up in the hospital. The kidney is highly vascularized because the entire blood supply has to cycle through it and he'll be getting several pieces cut out of it. They can't just take one piece like they would for cancer because part of his kidney might be healthy while another part is diseased.

She basically said not to fret because he's got years. But he's only 18 so while years are good, decades are what are needed here. He's in stage one renal failure right now.

A friend says we can only hope and of course prayer is part of hope. He's right as usual.

Even more Terminator stuff

Way the hell back in 2000, I think before I even got the job I have now, I worked on a show called Young Americans. It was a spin-off of Dawson's Creek and was filmed in Havre De Grace, although it was supposed to take place in Maine I believe.

Mark Famiglietti was one of the leads and just a super nice guy, very friendly and open to goofing off a little with his stand-in who was a friend of mine. I was suprised today to see that Mark was in Terminator 3, Rise of the Machines.

Which makes me, yanno, one degree from the film. I'm just sayin'

I've got steam-powered robots that declared war on the entire world in the Stork Situation, clanking around and stealing anything they can burn, which is one reason I've got crazed robots on the brain.

Terminator Two is on

I saw this film exactly once before. It scared the crap out of me. I watched it at home, all alone, and I ended up crawling up onto the back of the couch pressing myself into the wall, trying to get as far away from the tv as possible. I am seriously creeped out by the terminator that has the ability to pretend to be other people so convincingly. When you can't trust your senses you're in big trouble. Another reason I don't take mind altering drugs...

I turned in my SAG Award votes at two am this morning after spending something like eight hours at the movie theater getting in two more films, There Will be Blood and Juno. There Will be Blood is around three hours with trailers and Juno is two, with an hour between the two of them.

They were both extremely good in very different ways. There Will be Blood is this sprawling, powerful, drama about a crazy man and Juno is about a charming young woman faced with a difficult decision. Juno is funny as hell and I'm glad we were able to see it.

The toughest decision I made was between Julie Christie and Ellen Page for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role. I finally went with Julie Christie because her role seemed more difficult to me, but man it was close.

Here is a horrid little story

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Trehenban

John Trehenban (pronounced TREM-on) (1650 - 1671) of St Columb Major in Cornwall was a murderer sentenced to imprisonment in a cage on Castle An Dinas downs and starved to death.

The murder of the two young girls is recorded in the Parish Register.

23 June 1671 Anne daughter of John Pollard of this Parish and Loveday Rosevear (aged 17), daughter of Thomas Rosevear of St Enoder were barbarously murdered on the day before in the home of Captain Peter Pollard at the bridge by one John Trehenban the son of Humphrey and Cissily Trehenban of this Parish at about 11 O' clock in the forenoon upon a market day.

Legends attached to the murder

(According to local historian Marshel Arthur)

• Trehenban pretended to help in finding the murderer riding on horseback following the bloodhounds. His hat blew off and the dogs wouldn't leave it. Eventually he confessed.
• The lane where the bloodhounds picked up the scent is still known as 'Tremons lane'.
• He was placed in a cage which sat on a large rock. This rock is still to be seen and local people used to say that if you ran around this rock fifty times you would hear his chains rattle.
  
• Tremmon begged a passing woman for some food. All she had were a few tallow candles which he ate ravenously.
• According to local historian Marshel Arthur, local people used to refer to a no-gooder as 'a right Tremon'.

Text copied from wikipedia.

A quote from the United Hollywood blog

And finally, my personal favorite: Robert Iger gets 7% raise to $27.7 million a year. By way of context -- if the WGA got everything it was asking for, it would cost Disney $6.25 million a year.

Mr. Iger could write a personal check to end the strike for his whole corporation -- and still have a little over $21 million left over.
http://www.reuters.com/article/industryNews/idUSN1132970920080114

Found here:

http://unitedhollywood.blogspot.com/2008/01/links-roundup-for-wednesday.html

Amazing.

A cold, cruel heart

I'm watching the second episode of Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles and someone/thing, most likely a Terminator, walks into a hospital or medical center and steals some blood products. He/it punches through some glass to do it and knocks out a couple of security guards on their asses as he accomplishes his mission.

Meanwhile I'm thinking I would LOVE to see this guy accidentally walk into the MRI suite and tangle with the machine. Terminator, meet your match.

By Grabthar's hammer, by the suns of Warvan, you shall be avenged!

I'm watching Galaxy Quest with Cam. I'd forgotten how much I like it. In fact I probably like it even more now because I've seen so many episodes of TNG since this film came out. I've also been to a bunch of cons, although not Galaxy Quest cons. But anyway I'm much more equipped to get all the inside jokes and references.

Alan Rickman plays Dr. Lazurus and Sir. Alexander Dane. His character is so bitter that it's a wonder he showed up at the con in the first place.

I did a movie with him a few years ago, Something the Lord Made. I played a mother whose baby had blue baby syndrome. I'm sure there's something about it in these archives. The other lead in that film is Mos' Def, who I saw earlier this week in a deeply depressing film with Brandon Fraser about drugs and twisted family dynamics set in Brazil.

I got some stuff in the mail today from the Screen Actors Guild Awards. A copy of Into the Wild and a free ticket to see There Will be Blood. I might go see that tomorrow. Interestingly it's from an Upton Sinclair project.

More credit union news

According to this week's Credit Union Journal Daily Briefing a former manager of a credit union was stricken with Alzheimers and their family stole 2.8 million dollars. How's that for shameful?

A Ventura County Credit Union burglar failed in his attempt to use a blowtorch to break into an ATM when he set off the smoke alarm. Smart!

Shockingly busy

I'm so busy I have no time for anything. I'm working on a major project, getting all three years of my column up to a new site, which is great but each story needs to be entered by hand, one by one. Cam has midterms this week and we had dental appts yesterday and an allergist appt today. Plus my regular job and my column and my minimum five hundred words a day on the Stork book.

Hopefully will be caught up by Monday...

Making stuff up for political gain?

Someone at the Grapevine posted a link to this story, which is about twins seperated at birth who fell in love and got married. Very soap operaesque and a real sob story. I know, I scoff but while I felt awful for these people when I read the story, although I had questions, the more I thought about it more it seemed the story is too fantastic to be true. And yes, I am well aware that fantastic things happen every day so let's take a look at the "facts."

Twins who were separated at birth and adopted by different sets of parents later married each other without realising they were brother and sister, a peer has told the House of Lords.

And

Alton raised the case of the married twins -- who were born after IVF treatment -- during a debate on December 10, details of which only appeared on Friday.

When I read this I thought, the hell? Where did they come from? A baby farm? Who has in vitro fertilization, test tube babies, then gives the babies up for adoption, especially to two completely different sets of parents?

Parents who then later don't start worrying when their children fall in love with another adopted child who happens to have the very same birthday.

And the children supposedly found out after they were married. How did they find out? Mum or Dad finally spoke up? They had DNA testing and surprise, they were twins?

Why are there no names or details given?

Further reading show this interesting tidbit:

The Catholic politician -- who discovered the case after talking to a judge -- used it to highlight perceived deficiencies in the government's proposed Human Embryology and Tissues Bill, which is currently going through parliament.

So what we essentially have here is a FOAF, a friend of a friend, the classic sign that a story is really an urban legend. And this politician is using the story to argue against a bill he doesn't like, and not just a bill he doesn't like but:

The bill is designed to make it easier for lesbian and gay couples to have children through assisted reproduction, recognising same-sex partners as legal parents of babies conceived through donated sperm, eggs or embryos.

Isn't this incredible, unverified story amazingly convenient for him?

Still sick

I broke down and went to the doctor today, who sent me home with a bunch of antibiotics, some cough medicine, a new RX for epi-pens and instructions for something called nasal lavage, or as Cullen calls it, saltwaterboarding. Fun!

I also had to go for a cbc and something else I don't remember. She said I was very pale and showing strong symptoms of anemia, which would be frustrating since I just had that iron infusion recently. She said I have to get to the bottom of this anemia because you can't thrive with anemia, you can't really do anything. Add in what the Hopkins specialist said about anemia making PTC worse and it gets a little dreary.

A very dear friend of mine is in the hospital, awaiting some major surgery. That's about all I can say about that but it's extremely worrying. Thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers...

Poor rats, poor me

I've most been feeling sorry for our pet rats because they haven't had anyone to play with. In a normal day for them they spend some time with Cam and some with me and maybe some with whoever else might be visiting. But Cam went to Alaska for a few days and came home sick and I've been sick all year (ha ha) so they've been cooped up.

Because they are descended from lab animals they get colds and upper respiratory infections very easily so no handling them and infecting them. It's lonely and dull for them.

But today I felt more sorry for me. I can't sit up without coughing so much I throw up. I took some cough medicine last night that had expired in 2006 (I though the 6 was an 8) and spent the night waking up every three or four minutes from a dream in which I was falling. Frightfully tired all day, really unable to keep my eyes open for a lot of the day and thinking very slowly, thoughts like tortoises. I only wrote about 100 words, the least I've done in more than a year, and barely managed to get my work done.

My head isn't as stuffy so I'm wondering if I'm getting better and if I just hang in there a bit my cough will get better or if I'm being stupid and should go and get my chest listened to post haste. I can hear all these little musical squeaks coming from it...

Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman?

Variety reports that Sacha Baron Cohen may play Abbie Hoffman in Spielberg's The Chicago Seven. At first thought it seems odd to think of him playing a serious role but on second thought can Abbie Hoffman really be a serious role?

In other news practically all of us are sick. Cam has bronchitis, I have a cough and a cold, Chris does too and Cullen sort of hanging in there. We've been drinking a lot of orange juice, which to my great surprise has anchovies in it, kind of the last thing I expect in orange juice. It's this dumb omega three fatty oils kick the whole country is on, it's invading everything. Can you imagine orange cream bars with anchovies in them? No thank you.

Fun No Country for Old Men stuff

We went to see this movie one day this week, idk when exactly, and it's been like all I can think about since then. It's so amazing and the ending is so unexpected that I have had many questions. The more I think about it the more questions I have. Some of the links from the official website go to intriguing discussions which lead me to more questions and more thoughts.

It's made writing my column very hard because I can't really focus. And I need to because deadline is nine am and it's getting kind of late here...

If you go to this special microsite at Miramax you can download the script and watch a lot of interesting video including two trailers and some clips from the film. The interview with Javier Bardem is charming.

Hello Kitty

I remember when I was fourteen or so and living in San Francisco I went down to some square with my younger sister and there was this enormous stunned looking cat balloon thing and people handing out stickers and notebooks and things and we got some but weren't really impressed. Here we are thirty years later and you can now get a Hello Kitty laptop. She hasn't really changed her expression in all that time. Poor thing can never grow up...