Category: Life and Associated Annoyances

You mean it’s not me gullet, it’s me noggin?

Well, did another sleep study last week while hooked up to a CPAP machine. Good news is the machine did a good job at keeping my airways open so I could breathe unobstructed. Bad news is I still stopped breathing, which means I have Central Sleep Apnea – which is where the brain periodically decides that this “breathing” thing is so last season, and it’s not going to do it any more. This isn’t completely disastrous, as the rest of the body soon notices and start slapping the brain around until it gets its act together, but it’s still not the kind of thing that’s conducive to restful sleep or cardiovascular health, so it has to be dealt with. With a different, much more expensive type of machine that I’m probably going to have to end up buying, or at least renting, damnit!

In any case, I don’t like to end on a down note. Here’s a song.

Oh, they’re apparently re-burying Richard III in Leicester. Good! Glad to hear it. Leicester’s a lovely city but it needs some more tourist attractions after the railway viaduct got pulled down, and that Liberty statue sure isn’t pulling in the big bucks.

Well that explains that…

As part of my whole not-swell-up-like-a-walrus-and-die plan I’ve been eating cereal and yogurt for breakfast for the last month or so, as opposed to scarfing down whatever the hell grabs my eye when I stumble to the fridge in the morning. This has been keeping me feeling nice and full until lunch, resulting in much less snacking, but my weight has not changed one wit – which was puzzling.

Until today when I checked up on the nutritional figures for my cereal of choice – Uncle Toby’s Healthwise for Heart Wellbeing.

Looks healthy, doesn't it?
Looks healthy, doesn’t it?

This fine product – approved by the National Heart Foundation no less – turns out to be just over 30% sugar. 30% SUGAR.

So it’s not really surprising that I haven’t loss any weight eating this crap. In fact what’s surprising is that I haven’t gained any weight.

So tonight on the way home I’ll purchase some cereal that isn’t made by Oompa Loompas and then bin the rest of Uncle Toby’s Healthwise for Sugar Barons.

Fuckers.

The Laxatives were Super Effective

Terrible insomnia last night. When I finally did get off to sleep I dreamt that I was hand crafting miniature figures of characters from Little Orphan Annie, a project that also (for some reason) required a miniature replica of Bassendean Oval decorated with a gigantic beer advertisement. I can only blame too much cheese.

Anyway, you may (or may not) have noticed that there hasn’t been much activity on the Wyrmlog throughout the last month. This is because – in addition to the usual stress in the run up to the festive season – I was dealing with a potentially serious health issue. Without going into too much hideously organic detail I was suffering a series of intestinal upsets allied with strange abdominal pains, which led my doc to order a full endoscopy and colonoscopy, which for the uninitiated means sticking cameras into both ends of my poor, abused body to try and figure out what the hell was going on.

Now of course the worst case scenario was cancer…

And while based on my symptoms there was nothing to particularly indicate cancer there was nothing to not indicate it either. So until I got the tests done I was in a state of some nervousness. By which I mean only just staving off blind, screaming panic by sheer effort of will, which left very little time for such things as writing blog entries.

So, I spent the weekend before Christmas not eating and downing vast quantities of various nasty liquids and pills that did a quite effective job at aggressively clearing out the entire length of my digestive system, and on Monday went in to hospital to have cameras go adventuring where no cameras had gone before. These – naturally – turned up nothing more than a bit of general inflammation and mild diverticulitis which while not completely explaining my abdominal pains managed to rule out any nefarious malignancies about to drag me into an early grave. Thank God.

Since then I’ve been regaining my mental equilibrium courtesy of turkey sandwiches (perhaps the most reliably enjoyable aspect of the holiday season), Minecraft and a number of really excellent books I got for Christmas. I can particularly recommend The Martian by Andy Weir which I received at about 12:30 on Christmas day and finished at 11:30 the same night, having been quite unable to put it down. I’m also working my way through The World of Ice and Fire, which Rebecca and Dom kindly got me, knowing my penchant for getting way too into the background detail of fantasy settings.

(On that note, could it be any more obvious that the Andals are Anglo-Saxon expies? “The Axe”, c’mon! And what’s up with all the Lovecraft references? Oh, and a proper map would be nice. You know, this really sounds like I don’t like the book – nothing could be further from the truth, it’s just that fulsome praise is boring to both write and read, so I’m merely nitpicking at a really excellent work. Go and buy it!)

Anyway, so that’s what’s up. I was worried I might die, but it turns out I probably won’t any time soon. I hope you’ll all agree that this is a good thing 😀

PS: World Without End was pretty good, wasn’t it? Nora von Waldstätten, wowee! Although why did they make the Tower of London look nothing like the actual Tower of London?

PPS: It’s too hot today!

Obladee-Obladah

So, over the weekend I had very slow, very erratic internet for about half an hour each morning before it dropped out for the rest of the day. I also couldn’t go out anywhere and do anything interesting because the Telstra man might turn up and need access to the flat. So I was isolated, trapped and miserable – a condition only slightly alleviated by re-reading the entire run of Scary-Go-Round in book form and crushing the Ottoman Empire in Civ 5 (try to convert my cities to your heathen religion will you?!)

Tonight I’m doing a sleep study as part of my long term plan to get on CPAP, get some decent sleep, have the energy to join the gym behind my complex, lose weight, get healthy, get confident, become suave and sophisticated and marry Florence Welch. This is a good thing, but it means that I can’t have any caffeine today, so not only am I suffering from net withdrawal but my head feels like it’s imploding.

In any case, here is possibly the most perfect video ever put up on YouTube – Dehydrated Spinning Blue Peter Cat.

An amazing fusion of vision and music that is at once hypnotic, strange, disturbing, jolly and fundamentally pointless. Go Internet!

The Court of Ancient Grievances

Order! Order! The Court of Ancient Grievances is now in session!

It is hereby alleged that on or around the 9th of October 1998 the music reviewers of the Sunday Times newspaper stated that the song Thunderbirds are Coming Out by TISM contained “speculation about the sexual proclivities of the Thunderbirds puppets”, indicating that said reviewers had either not listened to the song, or when listening to the song did not pay even cursory attention to the lyrics.

It is furthermore alleged that on or around the 26th of February 2001 the music reviewers of the Sunday Times newspaper stated in relation to the song Heat Seeking Pleasure Machine by Paul Mac that “Paul Mac has a sexy voice”, indicating that said reviewers did not carry out any research or even bother to read the back of the CD case – both actions that would have uncovered the publicly available fact that the vocalist on said song was Tex Perkins of the Cruel Sea.

It is also alleged that on or around the 12th of June 2002 the music reviewers of the Sunday Times newspaper stated that the song Satisfaction by Benny Benassi was a cover of the Rolling Stones song (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, indicating that said reviewers either failed to listen to the Benny Benassi song, failed to listen to the Rolling Stones song, or equally likely failed to listen to either.

Therefore, it is the opinion of this court that the music reviewers of the Sunday Times between the years 1998 and 2002 were a bunch of complete fart-artists labouring under the weight of a total and systemic contempt for music, the music listening public and their responsibilities as employees of the Sunday Times.

How plead the defendants?

(Note: The Court of Ancient Grievances acknowledges that this all happened a long time ago, and that it might in fact have been the music reviewers of the West Australian Newspaper who carried out these crimes against fact. If so, the Court apologises unreservedly to the music reviewers of the Sunday Times who presumably did not have their heads completely up their arses.)

I would rather live on a train

Thanks – I’m fine,
But I’ve nothing to give,
But I just have to leave,
Enough – I would rather live on a train,
And now – I’m dying,
Cause I don’t want to be here,
I don’t want to be seen,
Enough – I would rather live on a train,

— On a Train, Yuksek

If you’re wondering why I haven’t been posting of late it’s because I’ve been feeling wretched, wrung out and on the edge of total burnout for the last few weeks. I really need some time to curl up into myself and completey ignore the world – happily I’ve arranged to take some leave in August, so I only have to hold out till then, which I think is just about doable. Just don’t expect me to be presentable, amicable or even sociable until then.

In the meantime there are a few things that need mentioning…

1: The Wyrmlog has, for some reason, stopped emailing me when people comment. So, if you’ve made some wildly witty and intelligent comment and are miffed that I’ve completely ignored it, that’s why. I only see your comments when I log in to make a post, and I haven’t been doing that lately. I’ll see if I can fix the problem when I have a minute (maybe September some time).

2: Went to Supanova with Bek and Paula. Quite fun, despite my current fairly desperate state of mind. Saw Rose McGowan and John Barrowman who were charming (see what I did there?) and hilarious respectively. The story about the understudy and the laxatives, oh my god! And Mel Brooks screaming “GET INSIDE! THEY’RE GONNA DO SOMETHING CRAZY!”. Great stuff!

3: It’s nice that Heron are trying to make their paracetamol tablets more palatable, but making them taste like a caramel vanilla milkshake seems somewhat misguided. Even I, who am fully aware of what a paracetamol overdose does to your liver (to wit, kills it, with negative subsequent consequences for your general wellbeing) am tempted to chow down on a big pile of them just because they taste so damn good. I can’t imagine how the uneducated hoi-poloi react to such temptation!

4: I may well be completely out of the loop, but I was listening to the radio on Sunday when a song came on that from the very first bar completely grabbed my attention. I thought at first – based on the vocals of the first verse – that it might be a new Megan Washington track, but was disavowed of this theory when the chorus cut in, and so hastily transcribed some lyrics into Google to determine exactly what I was listening to. It turned out to be 24 Hours by Sky Ferreira – an artist that I was peripherally aware of but had never paid much attention to. Well, I’m paying attention now. The song is a great electro-pop track that I’ve listened to so often over the last three days that it’s now stuck in my head to the point of nausea, but I’m still looking forwards to listening to it on a more moderated schedule once the neural burn-in repairs itself. Here it is anyway, so you can laugh at how execrable my musical tastes have become…

5: Saw The Double on Sunday with Rebecca. A very strange, but very stylish and enjoyable movie. Directed by Moss from The IT Crowd you know. If you like thought provoking sci-fi, urban dystopias and crazed, shovel wielding priests then definitely go check it out.

Hmmm, I think that’s about it for now. There was probably some other stuff I wanted to mention, but I’m too scatter brained from stress and fatigue to think of it. Go and make your own damn entertainment.

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