A reminder.

And I know I haven't been posting anything new or original lately, but someday soon that'll change. At present, I'd like thank all my friends out there in Xangaland for just being. It's warm comfort in a cold winter to know you're there and I'm here. But not in a way that means we're separate; for, bathed in the refulgent campfire of the interbulbs, we are all

Here:

(cookies for YOU - stolen from one of godfatherofgreenbay's ever-marvelous photoposts)

Have a great weekend, everyone. It might be cold, but the days are getting longer!

<3 -phil

Ok, so while I'm working on finding a way to link photos from my blog, a process that used to be seamless, I thought I'd post this one for my good friend dirtbubble, as he recently and very nearly suffered a ruptured Aaron Plaat. I believe the Aaron Plaat is an organ rather like the appendix, insofar as it is a vestigial organ, though it may differ in other ways.

In any event, won't you take my hand and journey back with me? Back.....to a time when I actually posted....

I once had appendicitis. By the way, once is quite enough. I was alone in Seattle, just starting grad school. Took the University Hospital FOUR DAYS to diagnose it, during which time I returned dutifully every twelve hours, each time more bent over in pain than the last. And each time they'd friggin' give me a new x-ray and the x-ray tech would say "You again? Dude that's appendicitis," and I'd say TELL THE DOCTORS. But each time the DOCTORS gave me another can of 30 weight motor oil to drink and told me to come back again in twelve hours. The last time I went in it was "intern day" so they had all the (unusually sexy) female interns do a rectal exam on me because for some reason you're supposed to do this when you're checking for appendicitis, and damn I'm serious THEY WERE LINED UP AROUND THE CORNER just waitin' to stick their fingers up my ass. They'd shove a finger up there, move it around a little and ask me "does it hurt now?" and I'd go "HELL YES" and they'd go, "yes?...how about now?" and I'd go "PLEASE KILL ME" and they'd go, "There too, huh?" Man, every single one of those sixteen interns coulda stuffed her pretty index finger up her own ass and I'd still have been screaming YES.

I was in so much pain I didn't give a shit. Actually, I couldn't give a shit because my bowels had been shut down for four days by then and I was so dehydrated I was pissing brown, BUT ANYWAY they finally decided it was appendicitis and operated and YES IT HAD BURST by this time, so I had to stay for two additional weeks in the same hospital that screwed my diagnosis to begin with. They left an OPEN INCISION in my belly to facilitate "draining" and about every fourth day this illegal mexican immigrant came by with a dirty, hairy mop and a pail filled with thick gray hospital chum and some sort of seriously overburdened antiseptic. I always hoped he'd open a window and throw it out but instead he'd swab my room with it. Man, the dude couldn't speak a lick of english, he couldn't even understand "NO GOD PLEASE DON'T MOP MY ROOM". And I'm telling you it took that bubbly antiseptic slime hours to dry, and meanwhile I'm just lyin' there helpless, watching it "film up", with visions of what it might look like under even a cheap microscope and then when I needed to go to the bathroom I had to get up and drag my IV pole, which was for some reason PLUGGED INTO MY NECK instead of my arm, over to the bathroom and I swear my feet stuck to that sickly-sweet crap like i was walking across SUPERBUG VELCRO just to take a piss...

anyway, I survived.

------

(Originally posted September 12, 2006)

MERRY     CHRISTMAS     TO     ALL

(thanks to JessicaSpeak for turning me on to U900)

EDIT: Just found the actual moving video for this. Smashing.

My, my... LOOK at all that history repeating.

Sound travels faster when you throw a beer in a campfire, or at least the occurrence of events speeds up until the passing of time becomes something you feel. Like the way some roads are brick but then get paved over when nobody's looking for a hundred years, until a county commisioner decides it's time and the next day the road is a hundred years old again. Or the way molecules keep spinning in one direction and pretty soon everybody is writing essays and earning degrees on exactly the way everything goes around until one day someone notices that it's not going around, but coming  around. And the next day everybody stops.

Someone said they wished they lived in Toronto because in Toronto the passage between life and death is barely noticable. But they said that yesterday. Today, I'm thinking about how nothing happens between heartbeats.

Apologies in advance for the cryptoblogosis. In time either I'll reveal precisely what I'm working on, or quietly withdraw it - depending, you know, on if it actually works. For now I'm just dipping into the well of positive Xanga energy.

To wit, the simulation code I recently finished seems to think it's not a windmill....

I like that.

Now go forth! ...and do good stuff out there! Or go to bed it's getting late. One.

-phil

NOTE: these *should* be click-linked to the high res versions, but...idk. xanga not being too kind to me today. also, i was hoping not to clog up your photo box with them, but i don't seem to be able to stop that either. in any event, i hope you enjoy them.

<3,

"man. i write him a long email about the difficulty i'm having with the biography paper, and he writes me back A POEM. i think all men must fear explication of even the most moderate length."

"tl;dr"

"oh blow me."