Sitting quietly

Something Norm wrote a few days ago made me smile. On the subject of sitting quietly, doing nothing:-

But sitting quietly and doing nothing aren't the same thing. I'll take the first (I love the first) and leave the second. Sitting in a quiet room alone, you can read, you can think, you can make notes, you can write, you can blog. Doing nothing, you do nothing, and while even that may have its place from time to time, mostly it's like being trapped.

When I was in my twenties, I spent a considerable amount of time each day sitting alone in a quiet room. What was I doing? I was just sitting.

Can't say I ever felt trapped.

Up and about

I've been up and about the last couple of days, I even managed to do some cooking. We had Bang Bang Chicken for dinner last night, along with plain chow mein - they don't really go together but Mac said it was the best chow mein she'd ever eaten (I think she was being kind). The chicken recipe needs some work (it was the first time I'd cooked it) but it was a nice light meal and completely fat free apart from the sesame oil, chili oil and peanut butter. Okay, so it wasn't fat free but, hey, I'm not going to let a dodgy gall bladder dominate my life.

Talking of which, I dropped in at Baroque in Hackney to check up on the London literati and found Ms Baroque blogging about the gall bladder operation she had a year ago. I shouldn't have read her post. I only want to hear about gall bladder operations that were entirely successful, free of complications and continuing debilitating symptoms or anything else even remotely negative.

I need positive vibes, people!

Have you had a gall bladder operation that went swimmingly well? Was it the best thing that ever happened to you? Did it lead to palpable relief, a speedy recovery and a swift return to normal life? I want to hear from you.

Gall, pixels and Queen

Thanks to those people who've e-mailed me wishing me well in my ongoing tussle with my gall bladder. I should say it's my own stupid fault it got this bad. If I'd gone to the doctors when the pain first started instead of trying to ignore it, I wouldn't be in the state I'm in right now. There's a lesson there somewhere.

Mac's been doing her bit to cheer me up by sending me interesting and amusing links throughout the week. Here's a couple off them:

If you've seen "Minority Report" and haven't yet managed to completely forget the experience then the system on display at Perceptive Pixel will look familiar.

And, for any nerdy Queen fans who might be reading, there's this (click for larger image):-

Greetings

That's not a general salutation - it's the subject of the post, as in handshakes, fist bumps or just plain hellos. I use all three but I wasn't aware that the clenched fist touch could be interpreted as a "terrorist fist jab" which was how Fox News' E.D. Hill chose to characterize the gesture when Michelle Obama used it.

Are the people I greet with a fist bump: terrorists, terrorist supporters or terrorist imitators? Gee, I just don't know anymore.

Fox News has got me all confused.

Long wait

Looking back through my archives for a link for the last post, I realized I've been waiting for a gall bladder operation for the last six months. And I've been on painkillers all that time - no wonder I feel so washed out.

One day, some day, I'm going to be healthy again but judging by how long I've been waiting so far, it's not likely to be anytime soon.

In the meantime, I'm going back to bed.

Tegmark's universe

Via Instapundit: A link to an interview with Max Tegmark in Discover Magazine, one of my favorite living scientists (he produces a lot of interesting work outside his own specialism of cosmology).

The interview by Adam Frank, an astrophysicist at the University of Rochester in New York, is titled "Is the Universe Actually Made of Math?" and covers Tegmark's thinking on the mathematical nature of the universe. It's a useful companion piece to his paper "The Mathematical Universe" which I referred to briefly back in February.

If you're interested in wacky ideas, Tegmark's your man.

Extended absence

I've spent the last couple of days in bed drifting in and out of some kind of painkiller induced half-sleep, so I haven't had a chance to spend much time online. It looks like that's likely to continue to be the case - my gall bladder's not going to get better on its own and I'm still waiting for a date for the operation (it's weeks away, at best). So I don't expect I'll be doing much blogging for a while.

Just thought I'd let you know.

Just humor him

Sunny Hundal at Pickled Politics has a knack for saying the stupidest things but his latest pronouncement is just hysterical (not to say unhinged):-

"New Labour wants to extend anti-terrorism legislation until every brown person in the country is locked up"

Of course they do, Sunny. Of course they do.

Books for boys

Mac and I did some book buying over the weekend. We buy a lot of books for the two younger boys - they're prolific readers. Sometimes what we get doesn't appeal to them but we got lucky with the last couple of purchases

Spud (aged 10) has really got stuck into "Uneasy Tales", a collection of supernatural short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. He likes them because "they're kinda creepy".

Meanwhile, the Big Fella (13) is completely engrossed in "The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster". He'll be taking it along to the Christian youth club he goes to on Fridays - he wants to cause a stir. That's my boy!

Of course, being the Big Fella, his take on it is slightly skewed: He refuses to acknowledge that it's a satirical work and has chosen instead to regard it as revealed truth. "The Christian's have their Gospel; now I've got mine!" I can tell he's spoiling for a fight - he'll be going head to head with the Christians this Friday. Good luck to him.

Overexposed

Found via Language Log: A photo in need of a caption.


Photo Jane Cleland

Read the full story at the Bay Area Reporter.

Family guy

Today is Father's Day. So, while I'm out of my sickbed and being feted by the family, I thought I'd post a link to the latest video from No 1 Son.

The BBC have used a number of them as intros to episodes of their current season of Family Guy (including, most recently, The Mind of Bears) - I guess it's cheaper than paying a continuity announcer.

This cheesy guitar piece is No 1 Son's latest offering (previous videos here and here):

Pigs

It's been an interesting week. In between visits to the hospital and lying around tripped out on painkillers, I went to view an agricultural smallholding - a friend and former business colleague is looking at getting into pig farming. It's probably not the best time to be thinking about such things, but he has time on his hands and money in his pocket (I helped him sell his previous business last year).

He's looking at raising "happy pork" - free range, organic, rare-breeds (most likely Middle White's rather than the increasingly ubiquitous Gloucester Old Spot) and I have to say it's an interesting project. I've never thought of myself as a pig person but if he goes ahead with it, I might occasionally get involved on a day to day basis.

The boy's are excited about the idea - unlike me, they eat pork. So the prospect of having a ready supply of pigs on the doorstep appeals to them. Of course they also like the idea of looking after animals and are keen on giving the pigs names. Though, like my friend said, "You can't give them names. You'd never eat them if you gave them names." And that from a man who's a qualified master butcher!

The joy of math

My gall bladder has got the better of me, so I've retired to bed with a good book: "The Art of the Infinite" by Robert and Ellen Kaplan.

The Kaplan's have put a lot of effort in to making math popular - there's a short BBC profile of the couple here. Notice the BBC reporter sent to interview them makes a point of mentioning how bad he is at mathematics - as this BBC report makes clear, a lot of people in Britain are strangely proud of the fact they can't add up.

Go figure.

In case of failure

From the National Archive: Message drafted June 5, 1944 by General Eisenhower in case the D-Day landings failed:-

Brief encounter

From KoT via BoingBoing


"You don't need to see identification. We aren't the stormtroopers you're looking for."

The gall

After yet another visit to the hospital (gall bladder this time), I now have a timescale for my operation though not a definite date - I've been told four to five weeks. They're going to write me with the date and I've been told I should receive that within ten days. Judging by past experience, they mean ten "working days". So, it will probably take two weeks to come through.

The whole process - from diagnosis to operation - will have taken seven months. In the meantime, I've been in varying degrees of pain, ranging from considerable discomfort to outright bloody agony (I've learnt I need to stay off the fajitas, and all other oily or fatty foods, until I'm sorted). I've had several hospital visits, a couple of emergency admissions and numerous tests, scans and examinations. I must be costing the National Health Service a small fortune.

I'm glad I'm not paying for it.

United States of Song

While my own state tour takes an extended sojourn in Nebraska, Norm Geras is ploughing through the alphabet from Alabama to Wyoming with the United States of Song.

Songs of Florida is Norm's latest offering, which means he's already covered Delaware. There are songs that mention Delaware? Well, just a couple.

Update
Yesterday, it was Georgia's turn with fifteen songs mentioned but, strangely, "Midnight Train to Georgia" by Gladys Knight and the Pips was not one of them. So, here 'tis:-



Update to an update
Somehow I missed it - I must be going doolally - the Gladys Knight number is in Norm's list along with a link to a live performance.

Today's lesson

From Damon Runyon's "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown":-

Son, no matter how far you travel, or how smart you get, always remember this: Some day, somewhere, a guy is going to come to you and show you a nice brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is never broken, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that the jack of spades will jump out of this deck and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not bet him, for a sure as you do you are going to get an earful of cider.

Quoted in "Big Deal" by Anthony Holden.