Life and Associated Annoyances – Page 8

Bronchial Adventures

Well, this is fun. I’ve had a dry, itchy cough since before Christmas. This week it decided it would be better accommodated by my lungs, moved downwards and turned into bronchitis. On the plus side I’ve got a few days off work. On the downside my body seems to have decided that the best method to get rid of the infection is to get rid of my lungs entirely, and is attempting to cough them up on a regular basis.

I’ve been to the docs (happily I had booked an appointment to get the dry, itchy cough looked at before it went feral on me) and have been prescribed rest and a five day series of antibiotic pills the size of twenty-sided dice, so I should come up smiling on Tuesday morning.

In the meantime I’ve been working on painting my Cyclops Demolition Vehicle and watching a rather good documentary on H.P.Lovecraft up on ABC iView, so all’s well that ends well (assuming I do end up well – if not, I’ve got a repeat script on the giant pills).

Oh yeah, this is new. I bought a copy of the Game of Thrones board game. Hopefully I can introduce the guys to it soon, so Fabian can wipe the floor with us all. I’ve got a half a mind to try playing as the Starks, as it looks like an interesting challenge… I’ve also read my way through the first three books, and am now onto part II of Storm of Swords. I found Part I hard going at a few points, but it picked up at the end and I can’t wait to see just how awful the Martells turn out to be (just about everyone in Westeros is awful, it’s merely a matter of degree ;))

That’s it for now. Got some coughing to do…

Internet Famous! (For a certain value of ‘famous’)

Well, that’s a turn up for the books.

I posted my Gaunt’s Ghost Lego project to Reddit. Next thing I know Dan Abnett himself is calling me ‘a very, very fine human being indeed’.

Brutal! 😀

This Cannot be Borne!

The minimum temperature last night was 27.7 degrees. I think we can all agree that this is ridiculous and something should be done.

I suggest sending a fleet of tugs down to Antarctica to snap off a bit of ice shelf and tow it back here. We can then hack chunks off of it and helicopter them up into the hills. The easterlies will turn nice and cool, and the runoff will go straight into the dams. It’s a win-win situation!

Get onto it Premier! I command you!

Daily Greets

This is Jinsy is one of the most fascinating things I’ve seen on television in quite some time.

I eagerly await the next episode.

On another subject entirely – first day back at work, 100% cloud cover, crippling humidity, predicted maximum temperature of 39 degrees and thunderstorms. When did I get moved to the Singapore office!?

(Note: We don’t have a Singapore Office)

Excuses, Excuses…

I know I promised a review of The Hobbit, but we’re currently on the sixth day in a row with temperatures exceeding 37 degrees, so brain no working good so much not yus.

In the meantime here’s some Lord of the Rings content to tide you over…

Baktunomania!

So, tomorrow is the end of the world! Woo-hoo!

I can tell you what’s going to happen tomorrow – nothing. That is to say plenty will happen, but none of it will be any different to any other day on planet Earth. Sure, a cycle in a calender is coming to an end, but so what? Someone’s calendar is always ticking over. What makes the Mayans so damn special?

B’ak’tun come and go – after all they only last 394 years. Did the world end in 1617? Was human consciousness lifted to a new level in 1223? All evidence points to no. I ain’t holding my breath this time around.

And sure, you can claim that the end of the 13th b’ak’tun is special. That each ‘world’ lasts 13 b’ak’tun and then ends. The problem with that is that it’s an entirely modern idea based on fundamental misinterpretations of Mayan thought. There are only two Mayan inscriptions that even mention the end of b’ak’tun 13 – one of them merely notes that it’ll happen one day, the other says it’s the festival of an almost completely unknown minor god. That’s it. No prophecies, no predictions, absolutely nothing to suggest that the commencement of b’ak’tun 14 will be any different to any other point in human existence.

The end of the 13th b’ak’tun is upon us. The world won’t end, or be transformed, the human race won’t be wiped out or redeemed, and things will carry on into the 14th b’ak’tun just the same as it ever was – except that new age con-men will need to find some other way to sell books to the gullible (I’m guessing something to do with Nibiru).

I’m still going to take the opportunity to post this though…

I Have Some Complaints

The old depression is absolutely killing me at the moment. I’m dragging myself into work, but spend a lot of the day just dully staring at the screen trying to remember what I’m meant to be doing. Not good, not good at all.

In any case, I have some complaints…

Westpac – it’s pretty impressive that you were able to find, let alone hire Bonnie Tyler for your latest ad, but seriously, what kind of maniac would play Total Eclipse of the Heart at a wedding? It’s a song about a relationship crashing and burning! You might as well play Deutschland über Alles at a Bar Mitzvah!

Treechange – I hate that word. I don’t know why I hate it, I just do. With a passion. If you ask me, Sigrid Thornton has a lot to answer for.

All over the news this morning is an artist in Queensland who’s using roadkill and maggots to make paintings. Any fool who thinks this is newsworthy has obviously never hung out with artists.

The Twelfth of the Twelfth Twenty-Twelve – Oh woop-de-do. Some numbers have lined up. Let’s all strip naked in the street and party. If we used base 8 or something this would be a day like any other.

That’s it. Maybe some caffeine will cheer me up.

Kullervo it Ain’t

Been dividing my time between feeling horribly run down and depressed, and building my knight titan (it’s actually starting to look pretty good). Neither are leaving much time for blogging.

But hey, worse things happen in Finland…

(It’s probably sad that I immediately identified this… thing… as being Finnish from the shots of the Sibelius Monument).

I Bleed

Having the kind of anxiety and depression riddled day where simply being conscious hurts.

There’s only one solution. The Pixies.

There. That’s a bit better.

A Penny Drops Moment

Sadly, today is Dave Gorman’s last show on Absolute Radio. I’m vaguely thinking about tuning in live over the interwebs – if I can figure out the timezones and such – or I may just wait for the podcast.

In any case, one of the subjects frequently discussed on the show were ‘Penny Drops Moments’ – that is the moment when you suddenly realise something incredibly obvious that’s been staring you in the face for ages. I had one of those the other day, so thought this an auspicious date to write about it.

Many, many years back, when ah were just a lad (sorry, I seem to have gone all Yorkshire, give me a minute to apply a smack to the head… ouch!… that’s better), many years back there was a paranormal themed show named Strange Things on local radio station RTR. Every week the hosts would pick a ‘strange thing’ as a subject and put together a selection of interviews, music and general irreverent discussion about it. One week, they chose the subject of Satanism, and in between a biography of Aleister Crowley and ridiculous urban myths about Boya Quarry, they interviewed the self proclaimed ‘Pope D.K.D Cadaver’ of the Church of the Subgenius about his ‘Satanic Church of the Sacred Excrameditation Bowl and Divine Slack’.

This interview was a riot. You can actually judge for yourself just how much of a riot because one of the first things I ever posted on Wyrmworld was a transcription of it – happening to have recorded it off the radio when it was broadcast (the transcription even includes some audio files of the original ranting! Magic! :)).

I was reminiscing about this interview the other day, when I realised something. Something that had been staring me in the face for years. The name of the ‘Pope’. D.K.D = Decay D = Decayed. Pope Decayed Cadaver! An obvious reference to the Synodus Horrenda! D’oh!

The Synodus Horrenda, for those whose knowledge of weird and bizarre history isn’t quite up to scratch, is one of the strangest and most disturbing incidents in the entire strange and disturbing history of the Catholic Church. Known in English as the Cadaver Synod, it took place in 897 during one of the various power struggles that surrounded the Papacy, and involved the then Pope Stephen VI (or VII – it’s complicated) having the decaying corpse of his predecessor Pope Formosus dug up, and put on trial for various abuses of power. The trial mostly consisted of the rotting corpse being propped up on a chair while Pope Stephen yelled questions and accusations at it, and ended with the body being stripped of its Papal vestments, having its fingers cut off, and being thrown into the Tiber River.

(You may think Clint Eastwood talking to an empty chair is weird – Catholicism has you beat every time!)

So there, a penny drops moment of the strangest kind!