Parkinson's Update

It's been over a year and a half since I wrote in this blog about having been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.  I had said, at the time, that I didn't intend to turn this blog into a "Parkinson's blog" and, true to my word, I haven't dwelt upon the subject (as the virtual hecklers in the audience point out that I haven't dwelt upon or even written about very many subjects at all!  Well, this post may over-compensate for my reduced verbiage of late.  All I can say is, you asked for it!)

Well, more than a year and a half has gone by, so I thought perhaps my regular readers (both of them!) might like an update, so here it is.

Overall, my condition has stabilized somewhat, although there has been some notable deterioration.  While I never kept track of my typing speed in words per minute, I'm certain that it has slowed somewhat.  I unintentionally type a lot more double letters than I used to and my fingers just don't move as quickly and gracefully over the keyboard as they once did.  For a computer programmer who has been touch typing throughout his career and even before then (I did take a typing class in high school), this has been noticeable.

Related to the typing problem, my use of computer mice has developed an irritating problem as well.  I'm constantly clicking my right mouse button unintentionally.  I tend to rest my right ring finger on the right mouse button as I move my cursor around the screen, but that finger has developed a tendency to twitch, or to rest on that right mouse button just a bit too heavily.  Most computer users will understand that right-clicking one's mouse is often used for alternate functions such as popping up menus or cancelling commands, which means that I often end up doing things that I absolutely did not intend to do.  Thank heavens for the undo function!

While I've always had a slight tendency to stutter or stammer somewhat, this seems to be getting worse as well.  Speech impediment is another common Parkinson's affliction.  In my case, I think it's a combination of a reduction in the ability to coordinate my mouth and tongue movements, as well as an increased tendency to grope for words that used to be at the tip of my tongue.  Sadly, Parkinson's can affect cognitive functions as well.  I'm hoping that isn't the case with me (hey, we all have trouble thinking of words from time to time, especially as we get older).  Interestingly, I've had very little trouble formulating this blog post which suggests that it may be more my mental speed that's been affected rather than my mental capacity.  Sitting here, typing, I have more time to compose my thoughts and form them into sentences than I would if I were speaking off the cuff.

Perhaps most annoyingly, that embarrassing symptom of uncontrolled drooling that I'd mentioned in my original post about Parkinson's has worsened.  This is a common Parkinson's affectation, medically referred to as sialorrhea.  See, everyone's mouth constantly generates a certain amount of saliva, even when we're not eating, and most of us just swallow it automatically without even being consciously aware of doing so (yes, that includes you.  Have I grossed you out?)  Parkinson's can interfere with automatic reflexes like this so, in my case, if I don't make a conscious effort to swallow my saliva every so often (sounds even more gross, doesn't it?) it runs out of the right side of my mouth.  The problem worsens when I'm focused on a task (like doing my job at work) and not paying attention to what's happening in my mouth.  This can be embarrassing even if no-one actually sees it happen, because the saliva tends to land on my shirt and leave faint rivulets and trails as it dries.  I've actually started preferring to wear shirts with fabrics and patterns that don't show these as clearly as others.  I must say, the medical establishment hasn't helped by giving the condition an embarrassing sounding name.  Quick, what other medical conditions can  you think of that end with "...orrhea"?  I can think of two, right off the top of my head, and neither is usually mentioned in polite company.

My neurologist has suggested a few remedies for this.  First she prescribed a medication called Cuvposa.  This is a liquid, originally intended for people afflicted with cerebral palsy, which reduces or eliminates drooling by inhibiting the production of saliva.  Trouble is, it apparently inhibits the production of all sorts of bodily fluids.  Just a few of the long list of potential side effects include constipation, bodily heating (because the sweat glands stop working), dry mouth, nasal congestion, headache, vomiting and shallow, rapid breathing.  In short, Cuvposa dehydrates the person taking it!  I quickly decided that the side effects were likely to be worse than the drooling, and rejected that option without even trying it.  I filled the prescription, but the bottle sits, untouched, in the medicine cabinet.  

Because I did fill the prescription, I also learned that a 473 ml bottle of the stuff costs $700!  No, you did not misread that.  Seven hundred! That's an expensive way to dehydrate myself.  Fortunately, the cost was covered by my employer's medical plan, but it does have a yearly limit and, at $700 a bottle, it wouldn't take me long to get there.  This smacks of a drug company that's recouping the cost of making a medication that has a low sales volume on the backs of those few people who require it and therefore have no choice.  Jeers to Merz (makers of Cuvposa).

The second thing that my neurologist recommended was a nasal spray called Ipravent.  This is intended to stop a runny nose but I guess my neurologist reasoned that if it reduces nasal mucous, it might also reduce saliva as well.  I was directed to spray it under my tongue rather than into my nostrils.  I agreed to try that and I can report that I've not had any undesirable side effects, nor any desirable ones, such as reduced drooling.  It simply doesn't seem to work.

The third option suggested by my neurologist was Botox injections into or near the glands that produce saliva.  I guess the idea is that Botox can reduce the flow of saliva by puffing up the saliva ducts in the same way that it reduces wrinkles by puffing up the skin.  I read up on it.  It has been shown to be effective and seems a low-risk option which can always be reversed by simply stopping the Botox injections (which need to be repeated every three to six months).  I'm considering trying that.

So, how have I been managing my Parkinson's, you may wonder?  Well, I regularly take levocarb, which is the go-to medication for Parkinson's.  That helps to mask the symptoms by giving my brain an infusion of the dopamine that it seems incapable of creating in sufficient quantities on its own.

More interestingly, I've been referred to an organization called CARESPACE Health & Wellness where I've enrolled in a special exercise program for Parkinson's sufferers called PD SAFEx.

CARESPACE is a privately run organization which offers programs to improve both health and wellness  with the help of physiotherapists, kinesiologists, chiropractors, dieticians and psychologists, to name but a few.  It's not exclusively for Parkinson's sufferers but it is run by Dr. Quincy Almeida, who has specialized in the study and treatment of Parkinson's for several years, and who developed the PD SAFEx program.

PD SAFEx is a twelve week program designed to slow the progression of Parkinson's disease through the use of physical exercises aimed at retraining the brain to correctly interpret the sometimes distorted feedback that it receives from the body's proprioceptors.

Proprioceptors are sensory receptors that provide the brain with feedback about what the body is doing, including where everything is positioned in space, what muscles are in use, what parts of the body are moving and how they are moving.  Dr. Quincy's theory is that the central problem with Parkinson's is the brain's inability to correctly interpret the information that it's getting from the proprioceptors.  

This has caused Dr. Quincy to see Parkinson's in a different light from that of the traditional medical establishment.  For example, he doesn't see a trembling hand, one of the most common indicators of Parkinson's disease, as a "symptom" but, rather, a coping mechanism that the brain is using to counter a lack of feedback.  With Parkinson's, the brain is unable to determine the hand's position in space, so it sends out signals that cause the hand to tremble (sort of the brain's way of asking the hand "where are you?")  This trembling strengthens the feedback signals sent by the proprioceptors until the brain says "Ah!  There you are!"

The exercises in the PD SAFEx program are designed to teach the brain what feedback to expect in response to specific movements and thus improve bodily control as well as reducing the need for over-compensation strategy such as tremors.

So, for the TL;DR version (which, admittedly, I should perhaps have given at the beginning of this post), I've accepted Parkinson's as a permanent part of my life.  I'm learning to cope with the symptoms as best I can, while working to control or reduce them wherever possible.  I do feel that fate has led me to the right professionals who are helping me to succeed in this.

I'll close with a special shout-out to Dr. Quincy Almeida who, besides being extremely knowledgeable about Parkinson's disease and empathetic to those living with it, seems to be just a nice guy in general.

Give Us Back Our Rainbow

Today I wish to bring to your attention a heinous wrong that must be righted. It appears that in the grand tapestry of life, the LGBTQ movement has made a sinister usurpation, snatching away an iconic symbol that has, for centuries, belonged exclusively to leprechauns—the illustrious rainbow.

Oh, how the leprechauns must be feeling right now! Their beloved and cherished symbol, the radiant arch of colors that has adorned their pots of gold and shimmered through the misty landscapes of folklore, has been shamelessly snatched from their grasp. It is a travesty of mythical proportions, an outrage that deserves our full condemnation.

For far too long, the leprechauns have been marginalized and relegated to the shadows of fairy tales and folklore. They have dutifully protected their pots of gold, maintained their mischievous ways, and gleefully danced along rainbows when they saw fit. But now, in a brazen act of cultural appropriation, the LGBTQ movement has pilfered this age-old symbol and draped it around themselves, leaving the leprechauns in a state of bewilderment.

It is simply unacceptable! How dare those who identify as LGBTQ utilize the rainbow to represent their diverse community and their struggles for acceptance, equality, and love? Can they not create their own symbol? Must they trample upon the traditions of the leprechauns, a proud and mythical people who have watched over rainbows since time immemorial?

If we allow this affront to go unchallenged, what will be next? Will leprechauns be stripped of their treasured green attire, only to see it paraded around by eco-warriors? Shall their pots of gold be confiscated by bankers, leaving the leprechauns destitute? Will we witness a horde of unicorns prancing about, demanding their rightful place as the symbol of purity and grace?

I implore you, dear readers, to stand with me in this grave injustice. Let us rally behind the leprechauns, who, in their solitary existence, have brought joy and whimsy to our lives. It is time to reclaim the rainbow on their behalf, to restore it to its rightful owners. For without the leprechauns, who will guide us to our dreams? Who will leave a trail of gold at the end of the rainbow?

In conclusion, I beseech the LGBTQ community to find it in their hearts to relinquish their claim to the rainbow. Let them devise their own symbol, one that speaks to their unique experiences and aspirations. Unless LGBTQ stands for Leprechauns, Goblins, Banshees, Trolls and Qilin, their community has no claim on the rainbow!

Hold The Phone!

 Quick, what's this?

 

 

Darth Vader trying to levitate a pile of volcanic rocks from the planet Mustafar?  (Actually, that's a bowl of watermelon cubes).

 

A piggy bank like those old coffins where a skeleton hand comes out and takes your coin?

 

 

No?  Here's a clue.

 

Yes boys and girls, it's a phone holder!  It doesn't charge the phone.  It doesn't plug into the phone or communicate with it wirelessly in any way, shape or form, so it doesn't alert you to incoming calls or messages by flashing its eyes or anything like that.  It doesn't talk ("You have an incoming message, my master!") or do anything else special.  It just provides you with an interesting place to set your phone when you're not using it.  (At this point all the millennials out there are scratching their heads wondering "What do you mean when you're not using it?")

As anyone who has perused this blog before will already know all too well, I'm a bit of a Star Wars geek (and Star Trek geek, and Simpsons geek, and ...) so anyone who has occasion to buy me a present for whatever occasion and can't think of anything I need tends to get me Star Wars stuff (or Star Trek or Simpsons stuff).  It was my daughter who got me this thing last Father's Day.

I have to admit, for a geeky gift, it's surprisingly practical (now I always know where my phone is) and it is kind of an ego boost having the Dark Lord of the Sith as your own personal phone caddy.

 

A-Nit Pickin' and A-Grinnin'

Out on runway number nine
Big 707 set to go
While I'm stuck here on the ground
With a pain that ever grows

Those lines are from one of Gordon Lightfoot's most famous songs, Early Mornin' Rain.  But did you know that Lightfoot made a technical error when he wrote the lyrics to that song?  A later verse goes like this...

Hear the mighty engines roar
See the silver bird on high
She's away and westward bound
Far above the clouds she'll fly

Do you see it?  It's such a glaring mistake, it makes you wonder how he could possibly have missed it, doesn't it?

... (Crickets) ...

Okay, for the benefit of those few of you who might not be familiar with the ways of aviation, runway numbers are based on the compass direction in which the runway faces.  Runway 36 would face to a heading of 360 degrees (north).  Runway 27 would face to a heading of 270 degrees (west), but runway number nine faces to a heading of 90 degrees.  That's due east!  Any airplane taking off from runway number nine would be away and eastward bound, not westward.  Apparently, the song's protagonist was cold and drunker than he realized!

What makes it even sadder, is how easily this could have been fixed; just change the word "westward" to "eastward". 

Hear the mighty engines roar
See the silver bird on high
She's away and eastward bound
Far above the clouds she'll fly

There. Perfect. 

Alternatively, if the airplane really must be going westward for some obscure reason, you could alter the earlier verse instead, like this ...

Out on runway twenty-seven
Big 707 set to go
While I'm stuck here on the ground
With a pain that ever grows

Now the plane can happily be away and westward bound in the other verse.  But, personally, I prefer my first suggestion because, although the first and third lines of the verse don't need to rhyme, Out on runway twenty-seven just doesn't roll off the tongue as effortlessly as Out on runway number nine, does it?

In Lightfoot's defense, he's not alone in making these lyrical faux pas.  In fact, I could point out a few more obvious ones (and you know that I will).

One of Chris de Burgh's best-known classics is a song named A Spaceman Came Traveling.  It starts out...

A spaceman came traveling on his ship from afar
T'was light years of time since his mission did start

D'OH!!!  Only the second line and he's already wrecked the song!  Okay, surely nobody missed that one, right?  Light years is a measure of distance, not of time.  Specifically, a light year measures the distance that light travels in one year.  Who wrote those lyrics, the same guy who said that the Millenium Falcon made the Kessel Run in less that twelve parsecs?

Once again, easy fix...

A spaceman came traveling on his ship from afar
T'was light years away that his mission did start

And .... done.

One more example.  This time, I'll pick on Neil Diamond and his well-known song, Play Me.  (Note that I'm not picking obscure songs that nobody has ever heard of here.  Every single example so far has been taken from one of the singer's best-known songs!)  Consider this verse ...

Songs she sang to me
Songs she brang to me
Words that rang in me
Rhyme that sprang from me

"Brang???"  What the hell is "brang"?  That's not even a word!  If you mean the past tense of "bring", Neil, the word is "brought".  Of course, that doesn't rhyme, so this is a bit trickier to fix.  Hmmm, let's see now ... how about ...

Songs she sought for me
Songs she brought to me ...

No.  That doesn't really work, does it?  What if we change the tense?

Songs she'd sing to me
Songs she'd bring to me
Words would ring in me
Rhyme would spring in me

Yes!  There you are!  So Gord, Chris, Neil, now that I've done the heavy lifting for you, I expect you to use my new and improved lyrics any time you perform these songs from now on.  In fact, maybe you could nip into the studio and record revised versions of all three using the "proper" lyrics.  I don't think that's asking too much.

Cordially, Your Friendly Neighborhood Halmanator

Confessions of a Recluse

I have a confession to make.  I believe that I've weathered this pandemic better than most, because I have certain distinct advantages.  For one thing, I'm not a moron.  This has helped me to avoid getting infected.  Unlike those so-called "anti maskers", I understand that the novel Corona virus does not gave a rat's patootie about my personal rights and freedoms, so I follow the protocols.  I wear a mask when in public spaces, I try to maintain a distance of 2 meters or more from others where possible, I sanitize my hands regularly and I avoid unnecessary outings.

 I'm lucky enough to work for a company that has been designated an essential service, and so has remained both open and profitable, so my earnings have not been affected.  And yet, my job is not the kind of job that potentially puts me in harm's way like our doctors, nurses, personal support workers, truck drivers, grocery store clerks and Wal-Mart greeters.  

I also avoid socializing unnecessarily, and here is where I have another distinct advantage. As I've said more than once in this blog, I'm a natural introvert.  I actually like keeping to myself and staying in most of the time.  My idea of a fun evening is sitting at home in my easy chair watching something on TV - even something I've seen before.  Goodness knows, I have lots of movies and TV shows in my Blu-ray and DVD collection.  I don't even subscribe to Netflix or the Disney Channel.  I do subscribe to Crave TV because I'm apparently not happy unless I'm vastly over-paying for my recreational media (okay, so maybe I am a bit of a moron in some respects).

I have a fairly large music collection and I often enjoy listening to it.  By this I mean really listening.  Not just playing it in the background whilst doing something else.  I mean sitting back in that beloved easy chair of mine, the same one from which I watch TV, turning on some music, closing my eyes and just listening, savouring every note, every lyric, every nuance.   

Before the pandemic hit, I had been invited to a wedding that took place last November.  Because of the pandemic, the newly-weds had to scale back their guest list, so my invitation was revoked with regrets.  Was I offended or even just bummed out?  No sirree!  I felt like I'd been let off the hook.  I don't generally like going to weddings.  I'm not even looking forward to my daughter's this year!  If I could find some way of staying home and playing Duke Nukem Forever instead of attending, I'd do it in a heartbeat!

I don't even have Zoom or Skype chats with my friends and family.  I do use Skype, but just the text messages, no voice or video.  If I want to actually talk to someone (which is rare enough), I use a good old-fashioned telephone.  I don't need to see their faces.  In most cases, I know what they look like.  I don't have all that many friends and those few that I do have, I keep in touch via e-mail (and/or Skype).  I don't even have a Facebook or Twitter account.  Anyone who wants to keep track of me on social media can do so by reading this blog plus they get the added benefit of my wit and wisdom (and humility).

Some have suggested that the isolation forced upon us by the pandemic can be detrimental to mental health (or just detri-mental for short).  I just made up that contraction, but feel free to use it, royalty-free.  Just be sure to always follow it with "(c) Halmanator, 2021".  I think, if anything, the social isolation has improved my mental health (full disclosure: there are those who would note, at this point, that this is no grand claim as it had no-where to go but up anyway).  

Most people think of introverts as socially-handicapped recluses.  I prefer the Myers-Briggs interpretation of the term.  Myers-Briggs defines an introvert as someone who gets his or her energy from solitude rather than social interaction.  Thanks to this pandemic, my batteries are fully-charged!

Honey vs. Vinegar

A while ago, I was pulled over for nothing more than having the bad judgement to cut off a cop.  See, I was stopped at an intersection.  I had a stop sign.  The perpendicular traffic did not.  I swear I looked both ways and saw no cars.  Unfortunately, there was a bend in the road several yards to my left and, as I stepped on the accelerator and drove out into the intersection, a police cruiser suddenly came around that bend, headed right for my broadside.  His lights and siren were both off but, in hindsight, he must have been moving pretty quickly.

I floored it, in order to get out of his way as quickly as possible, while the officer behind the wheel of the cruiser simultaneously floored his brake pedal and turned on his bull horn.

Now, some of you may sympathize with me.  Some of you may be thinking "he must have been coming around that curve pretty darned fast!  Clearly, this was not your fault, Halmanator!"  Some of you might even have suggested as much to the police officer if you had been in my place, making protests along the lines of "I looked and saw no-one coming!  How fast were you driving, anyway?  You must have been speeding along at a pretty good clip!  I could understand it if you were responding to some kind of emergency dispatch but your lights and siren were both off!  Now, I'm willing to keep this little incident between us, but don't let it happen again ... pig!"

But that's not what I said.  I pulled over once I'd cleared the intersection, rolled down my window, and waited.  Within a few seconds, the cruiser drove up and stopped behind me.  The cop stepped out of his cruiser and sidled up to my driver's door.  Before he could say a word, I gave him my most sheepish smile and said "Well, that was definitely my bad!"

He regarded me silently for a moment and said "Yes it was."  Then he asked for my license and registration, which I promptly produced.  He went back to his cruiser for a few moments, presumably to check my history and look for any outstanding warrants, then came back, handed me back my license and registration and said "I know that curve is pretty close to the intersection but, next time, look more carefully" and, with that, he left.  No ticket.  No fine.  All in all, I'd gotten off easy.

My point here is that, had I been more combative or even belligerent, both my wallet and my demerit point collection would likely have wound up considerably lighter.  My apologetic, if not friendly attitude, probably helped a lot.

A more serious example:  In her book, Completely MAD (A History of the Comic Book and Magazine, author Maria Reidelbach talks about the history of MAD cartoonist Max Brandel, before he joined the magazine:

"A native of Austria, he had just begun a career as a cartoonist when the war broke out; during the Russian occupation of Poland he and his wife were captured by the Germans.  He was imprisoned in concentration camps, where he escaped death by amusing the Russians and the Gestapo with his caricatures of them."

Even in the midst of one of the most hellish institutions in history, Brandel was able to soften the hearts of men who thought nothing of sending whole families to their deaths by simply being likeable and making them laugh.

Then there's my dad.  During his battle with leukemia, he spent a fair bit of time in the hospital, not surprisingly.  The nursing staff always seemed particularly fond of him, again because he was simply a nice guy.  He accepted his sickness and the discomforts that arose from it gracefully, with few complaints, and he was always congenial with the nursing staff, smiling and chatting with them and occasionally expressing his appreciation for the care that they gave him.  When he died, several of them showed up at the funeral home visitations to pay their last respects.

Never underestimate the power of niceness and likeability.

Sibling T.M.I.

My sister is one and a half years younger than I.  There's not a huge age difference between us, and the gap seems to get smaller with each passing year.  But it did seem somewhat bigger when I was 18 and she asked me one day, totally out of left field, what color "come" is.

Now, on most guys' list of "Questions That We Don't Want To Hear From Our Little Sisters", I imagine that one ranks fairly high, right up there with "Why do all the pages of the magazines under your mattress stick together?"  On the other hand, I did feel somewhat relieved that she still had to ask that question.

My second reaction was the fear of that question being followed by "How do you know?" if I answered her.

My third reaction was to wonder why the color mattered to her.  Was she worried about choosing underwear that wouldn't clash?

I honestly don't remembered how, or even if, I answered her.  Maybe my mind has intentionally suppressed the memory.  All I can say is ladies, girls, even though you may understandably regard big brother as the font of all wisdom, there are certain questions that are just too weird to answer.

Thomas Covenant? Unbelievable!

I'm re-living my youth.  As the years pass, I find myself doing this more and more.  This time around, it has to do with a book or, rather, series of books, that I read back when I was twenty-something and am now in the process of re-reading.  It's a Tolkien-esque fantasy series known as "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever", written by Stephen R. Donaldson.

Thomas Covenant is a modern leper, and I'm not using the term "leper" in a figurative sense.  He literally suffers from leprosy.  Before he was diagnosed with the dread disease, he was a published writer as well as a family man, having both a wife and a son.  After his unfortunate diagnosis, his wife left him and took their son with her (can't risk either of our appendages falling off you know) and the rest of society shunned him as well, demonstrating that apparently not much has changed for lepers since biblical times.

"I thought you said this was a fantasy series," I hear my readers thinking at this point, "nothing terribly fantastic-sounding about that.  Sounds more like a melodrama, really."  Well, things do take a turn for the somewhat more fantastical when Covenant walks into town to pay his phone bill one day (an act of defiance against his fellow townspeople who would much rather he avoided any personal interactions) and inadvertently wanders in front of an on-coming police car.  At the moment of impact, his world dissolves from around him, as one might well expect that it would, except that it is then replaced with a different world; not the one that you might be thinking of, Dear Reader, as there is nary a sign of either pearly gate nor fire and brimstone. 

Well, actually, there sort of is fire and brimstone, but it's not what you think.  Covenant has apparently been transported inside a mountain which he will later learn is named "Kiril Threndor" or "Mount Thunder" in the common tongue, having been summoned by a creature known as a cavewight.  In due course, he learns that he has been transported to another world known simply by its inhabitants as "The Land" and he is sent on a mission by the enemy of that Land, one "Lord Foul the Despiser", to deliver a message to The Council of Lords, informing them that Lord Foul intends to kick their collective asses within the next forty-nine years, or sooner, if they don't manage to retrieve the Staff of Law from the cavewight who stole it, and used it to summon Thomas Covenant. 

The reason why the cavewight summoned Thomas Covenant, of all people, has to do with Covenant's resemblance to one of the Land's greatest heroes, Berek Halfhand, so named because he lost two fingers of his right hand during a big showdown between himself and The Despiser.  Covenant happens to be missing those same two fingers, in his case due to his leprosy. 

Covenant, not surprisingly, refuses to believe that any of what's happening to him is real, especially since his leprosy seems to go into remission during his time in The Land, so he officially assumes the moniker of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, just to make it clear to everyone around him that he doesn't take any of them seriously.

Sounding a bit more Tokien-esque now?  Hmmm?  And that, my friends, is my chief criticism of this series.  It's too Tolkien-esque.  Consider:

Thomas Covenant has been transported to a world, much like our own, known as Middle Earth - I mean The Land.

The Land is an idyllic place where both magic and fantastical creatures (cavewights, giants, ur-viles, mystical intelligent horses, etc.) exist and which is in danger of being corrupted by an evil entity known as Sauron - I mean Lord Foul the Despiser.

And here's the clincher; Thomas Covenant holds the one weapon which might defeat The Despiser, his wedding ring, which is made of white gold, which happens to be the ultimate source of "wild magic" in The Land.  An evil entity that can only be defeated by the power of a magic ring?  Really?

And get a load of the first book's description of Drool Rockworm, the cavewight that summoned Covenant:

"Crouched on a low dais near the center of the cave was a creature with long, scrawny limbs, hands as huge and heavy as shovels, a thin, hunched torso and a head like a battering ram.  As he crouched, his knees came up almost to the level of his ears.  One hand was braced on the rock in front of him, the other gripped a long wooden staff shod with metal and intricately carved from end to end.  His grizzled mouth was rigid with laughter, and his red eyes seemed to bubble like magma."

Ummm... did he also happen to make a funny "gollum" sound in his throat, by any chance?

I said that the resemblance to Tolkien's writings is my chief criticism of Donaldson's work.  My other criticism of the Covenant books has to do with the alternately corny and lame monikers with which Donaldson saddles his characters. "Drool Rockworm?"  "Lord Foul?"  Really?  They sound like the names of the evil villains in a typical Saturday morning cartoon show.  On the other end of the scale, we have "High Lord Kevin".  Okay, it's better than "High Lord Bob", I suppose, but just barely.

Now that I've undoubtedly earned the everlasting ire of both Thomas Covenant and Stephen R. Donaldson fans everywhere, let me say that I actually enjoyed the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.  Hey, I wouldn't be re-reading the first six books (Donaldson has since written more) if I didn't enjoy them.  They're well-written and they offer an interesting blend of the real world that we all know with the fantastic.  But, hey, I enjoyed "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens" too, yet I still maintain that it's basically "Episode IV: A New Hope" all over again.

Tubular Mike

One of my regular readers (yes, I do have some ... no, really, I do!) pointed out that I haven't posted anything new to this blog in quite a while.  What can I say but "guilty as charged"?

Okay, so maybe it's time for me to come out of my blogger's exile again, but I need a topic.  What to write about?  It may surprise you, Dear Reader, to learn that I am sometimes my own biggest inspiration.  What I mean is that, when I'm short on topic ideas, I often peruse my own past posts (not to mention practice my alliteration).  Reviewing my own writing somehow tends to stoke the flames of my creativity.  Besides, I must confess that I like re-reading my own work. I'm one of my own biggest fans (cue heckler: "You're your only fan!")

Browsing through my previous work in search of inspiration, I noted that I often tend to write about the things that matter to me; my favorite things, you might say, raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens and the like. So then, quickly reviewing my profile, which provides a handy list of my "likes"...

Computers: Done it.
Airplanes: Check.
Sci fi: Check.
Computer gaming: Check and double-check.
Comic book heroes: Check-a-roonie.
Toys: Check.
DVD and/or blu-ray movies: Check mate

Ah!  Here we are.  Mike Oldfield.  Okay, I've mentioned him, but I think he merits his very own post.

For those who aren't familiar with Mike Oldfield (which is to say most of the North American continent), he's an English composer and musician; primarily an instrumentalist although he has been known to do vocals as well.  Those who do know him probably know him best for his seminal work, Tubular Bells; a complex instrumental work that was released in 1973 and a small snippet of which was used in the soundtrack of the 1973 film, The Exorcist.  Tubular Bells was not written specifically for that film.  It was simply used because, presumably, the director, William Friedkin, felt that it lent an appropriate ambiance.

Tubular Bells is split into two parts, simply entitled Part 1, which runs for 25 minutes and 34 seconds, and Part 2, which runs for 23 minutes and 18 seconds.  Each of the two parts took up an entire side of an LP vinyl record.  Oldfield played all the instruments himself, which involved a lot of over-dubbing.  In fact, at one point, the tape apparently broke from the wear, which probably explains the "Piltdown Man" section of that album.

So here's the deal:  A young, unknown musician wants to record an instrumental work that runs over 49 minutes in an era when most radio stations won't play anything longer than 3 to 4 minutes in length, and he wants to play all the instruments himself.  What chance would most people give that idea of succeeding?  Indeed, Oldfield did cut a demo tape which was rejected by almost every studio he presented it to, until it came to the attention of Richard Branson who was looking for new and interesting material for his fledgling recording studio, Virgin Records.  In fact, Virgin Records itself was actually launched along with and because of Tubular Bells.

What I like best about Oldfield is that he is hard to pin down in terms of style or genre.  He constantly experiments with new ideas.  One never quite knows what to expect from him next.

There are those who would disagree.  I know there are many who would categorize him as a new-age, avant-garde, largely electronic instrumentalist. Such people tend to labor under the false misapprehension that all of Oldfield`s work sounds like Tubular Bells.

It does not.  Not all of it, anyway.

Granted, he has done his share of long, complex recordings, but he has also ventured into the mainstream.  His second-best-known work, next to Tubular Bells, is probably either Moonlight Shadow or Family Man, both of which are light, pop songs featuring vocalist Maggie Reilly and both of which got substantial air play on mainstream radio stations everywhere.  In fact, some reading this may be scratching their heads at this moment thinking "Family Man?  Wasn't that Hall and Oates?"  Hall and Oates did indeed cover that song (and, perversely, their version may be more often recognized than Oldfield's original version).

Aside from pop, Oldfield has also done traditional, celtic and even orchestral music.  Tubular Bells was not the only one of his works used in a movie soundtrack.  In fact, the entire musical soundtrack for the 1984 Roland Joffé film The Killing Fields was written and performed by Mike Oldfield.  Unlike Tubular Bells, that work was specifically intended to be used as the soundtrack for the film.

The orchestral and Killing Fields links above also refute another popular misconception about Oldfield.  Many believe he's strictly electronic.  Although he does use electronics (synthesizers, vocoders, electric guitars) he also uses a great variety of acoustic instruments and sometimes wrings unusual sounds out of items which aren't normally considered to be "instruments" at all, such as shoes and, in one case, a toothbrush.  The list of instruments used in recording Tubular Bells includes acoustic guitar, bass guitar, electric guitar, farfisa, hammond B3 and Lowrey organs, flageolet, fuzz guitars, glockenspiel, "honky tonk" piano, mandolin, piano, percussion, "taped motor drive amplifier organ chord", timpani, vocals, plus tubular bells.

From time to time, Oldfield exhibits a quirky sense of humor.  It's first apparent in some fine print that appeared on the sleeve of the original Tubular Bells album, which read "In Glorious Stereophonic Sound – Can also be played on mono-equipment at a pinch. This stereo record cannot be played on old tin boxes no matter what they are fitted with. If you are in possession of such equipment please hand it into the nearest police station".  Often the humor seeps into the music itself, such as a flippant little number called The Rite of Man which appeared on the "B" side of the Moonlight Shadow single, or Don Alfonso, which appeared on one of Oldfield's compilation releases entitled Elements.

In his latter years, Oldfield has increasingly favored revisiting his earlier works over releasing new material.  His last new and original work was his Man On The Rocks album, released in 2014.  That was three years ago.  Apparently Oldfield has taken to making new albums about as often as I post to this blog.  Other than that, his more recent albums have been mostly re-masters and/or re-mixes of his earlier work, still enjoyable for his die-hard fans like myself, but perhaps somewhat disappointing to those looking for new material from this talented musician.

Unmentionable Cuisine

A few of my buddies and I used to get a kick out of getting each other "gag" gifts for birthdays, Christmas and other such gift-worthy events.  By "gag" gifts I mean gifts that were completely impractical or even bizarre whose only purpose was to elicit a laugh or at least an eye-roll or a face-palm.

I must confess that it was I who started the practice the year that I got my buddy, Mart, a 60-minute tape cassette of whale song for Christmas.  No, this wasn't an album named "Whale Song" or some new-age group or musician called "Whale Song", this was actual whale song, of the kind elicited by actual whales (humpbacks, I do believe).  Sixty continuous minutes of it, no less.  Now, this might have been understandable if Mart had been some kind of tree-hugging, environmentalist, hair-shirt, "Save The Whales" type, but he was, most decidedly not.  No, Mart had no interest in whales or their songs that I was aware of.  That's what made it such a grand gag gift.

Mind you, what goes around comes around and I did pay a price for my mischief (beyond the price of the tape cassette, I mean). You see, I ordered the tape from a catalog distributed by the World Wildlife Federation and I have been plagued, ever since, with a never-ending stream of pamphlets, catalogs and general requests for donations from that same organization, who have now identified me as being some kind of tree-hugging, environmentalist, hair-shirt, "Save The Whales" type.  This has been going on for over 20 years now.  I've since changed my address at least twice, but they still keep finding me!

So anyway, a couple of other mutual buddies also got into the act, such as Peter, to whom I once gifted a lovely, hard-cover tome entitled "The Tartans of Scotland", comprised of well over a hundred glossy pages featuring dazzling, full-color prints of the tartans of all the major Scottish clans, and several minor ones to boot.  Again, this might have made sense if Peter's surname were McTavish, Wallace or even Adams, but it happens to be Karwowski.  Peter's reaction, upon beholding the book cover after unwrapping the gift was to say "So help me, if I find a Karwowski tartan in there..."

Later on Peter, in a marvelous display of one-upmanship, decided that, since I enjoyed books so much, he would get me a tome of my own.  So he got me a book entitled Unmentionable Cuisine by Calvin W. Shwabe.

Unmentionable Cuisine is a cook book, of sorts, that provides recipes which, how shall I put this, you're unlikely to find in the Betty Crocker Cookbook.  The book's underlying purpose is to make the reader aware of alternative food sources, many of which are already enjoyed by other cultures, and to instill in the reader an awareness that, as the human population continues to grow on this planet of finite resources, feeding everyone will inevitably become more and more of a challenge and that challenge may be met, at least in part, by turning to food sources not previously or currently considered, at least in our Western culture.  Browsing through some of the recipes, it's not hard to understand why that is, even for those who, like myself, consider themselves as having somewhat more "adventurous" gastronomic proclivities than most.

The book begins with the following quotation by Frederick Simoons, who maintains that "Western man, despite his frequent temptation to claim his foodways are based on rational considerations, is no more rational in this than other men, for it makes no sense to reject nutritious dogflesh, horseflesh, grasshoppers and termites as food than to reject beef or chicken flesh".  (Mmmmmmm... dogflesh).

The recipes in the book are divided into five categories; Meat, Fowl, Fish and Shellfish; apparently vegetarians and vegans need not apply.  (Also, apparently fowl is not considered meat, but I digress.)  The fifth category (you thought I had mis-counted, didn't you?) is entitled Nonflesh Foods of Animal Origins but it only includes things such as Milk, Eggs and Sperm - no vegetable matter of any kind.

(Pausing now while my beverage-drinking readers towel off their monitors after having read the word "sperm" in mid-sip....)

To continue:  Further dissecting the aforementioned five broad categories, meat is broken down into Beef, Pork, Lamb and Mutton, Meat of Goats and Wild Ruminants, Horsemeat, Dog and Cat Meat, Rabbit and Hare and, finally, Rodent and Other Mammalian Meat.  Very considerate of the author to group together all the horsemeat recipes in one section, so that the reader needn't peruse the entire book for them when they get a hankerin' for horse.  And I won't even make the obvious "Chinese food" joke with regard to dog and cat meat.

The Fowl section is broken down into Chickens, Turkeys, Ducks and Geese (those are all one category), then Pigeons, Small Birds and Reptiles.  Yes, apparently reptiles are considered "fowl" (or maybe the author merely misspelled the word).

The Fish section is broken down into Amphibians, Bony Fish and Mudfish, Eels and Lampreys, Sharks and Skates and the Shellfish section is broken down into Molluscs, Crustaceans, Other Aquatic Animals (there's a catch-all if I've ever seen one) and Insects and Other Land Invertebrates.  I've already given the breakdown of the Nonflesh Foods of Animal Origin section earlier, so let's not go there again.

Okay, so much for the categorization.  Let's look at some recipes, shall we?  We'll start with something not too exotic.  Let's see now ... yes ... Pork sounds fairly safe. Oh wait, on second thought, in deference to my many Jewish readers.  Perhaps we'll go with Beef instead.  That particular chapter is even good enough to further break things down based on what part of the bovine we wish to eat, starting with the entire carcass (Roasted Ox on a Spit).  Well, I don't think I'm quite that hungry and, in any case, I haven't got a handy brick, refractory brick or stone wall available against which to build the necessary large, hardwood fire, so let's find us a recipe that just uses a portion of the animal.  There's Muscle Meat, the Head, the Tongue (a surprising number of recipes use beef tongue), the Eyes (Mmmmm.. Stuffed Calf's Eyes or Des Yeux de Veau Farcis as it would probably be listed on the menu of your favorite upper-class gourmet French restaurant), the Brains, the Feet, the Heart or even the Bones (great for making soups and marrow-based sauces).  Ah!  How about:

CALF'S HEAD WITH BRAIN FRITTERS (A 19th Century New England recipe)

Simmer a skinned and washed calf's head in salted water only and cool it.  Remove and slice the meat. Put the brain through the fine blade of a food chopper and mix it with a beaten egg, 1 T flour, 3 T milk and some nutmeg.  Fry the brain mixture as fritters.  Place the slices of head meat in some leftover beef gravy that has been seasoned with pepper, mace, cloves, herbs, onions and cayenne and simmer them 10 minutes.  Remove the meat, strain the sauce, and add some sautéed sliced mushrooms. Return the meat to the sauce and reheat.  Surround the head meat on a platter with the brain fritters and fried bacon.

No?  Okay then, how about seafood?  Let's see now... this sounds tasty...

EELS WITH SEA URCHIN GONAD SAUCE (a French recipe, also known as Oursinado)

Poach fillets of conger eel or any firm white fish (you know, if you don't happen to have any conger eels in the fridge) in white wine containing some grated onion and carrot, salt, pepper and a BOUQUET GARNI.  Prepare a purée of the gonads of poached sea urchins (which is given as a whole separate recipe in the same section of the book so you're covered), a mixture of soft butter and egg yolks, and a little of the fish stock.  Whip with a wire whisk over hot water until smooth and thick.  Cover the bottom of a shallow casserole with ½-in. slices of French bread, add only as much fish stock as the bread will readily absorb, pour the urchin sauce over the bread, and bake at 350°F only until heated well.  Serve the poached fish and pass the sauce dish separately.

The book goes on to note that, in fact, the variety of dishes into which sea urchin gonads can be incorporated to advantage is limited only by the cook's imagination.  Makes me wonder about that `secret sauce`that McDonald`s puts on its Big Macs.  I see the potential for a catchy slogan right up there with Beef Sounds Good or Put Pork On Your Fork:  Go Nuts with Gonads!  Pretty good, huh?

The only area where I found this book wanting is that it provides no guidance on how to identify the gonads on a sea urchin, nor even how to tell a male sea urchin from a female, which presumably would have no gonads.

I'll bet by this point you're wondering, Dear Reader, just how many more wonderful recipes like those presented above are to be gleaned from this incredible cook book.  Well, I'm happy to report that it numbers no less than 406 pages, and that's not even including the Epilogue, the Selected Bibliography (pointing you at other fascinating recipe books), the General Index or the Regional Index which organizes the recipes by country.

Oh and, one last note:  All of the recipes in Unmentionable Cuisine are presented, mercifully, without any pictures or illustrations.

Oh and, Peter, if you're reading this, consider this an open invitation to my place for dinner anytime.  There's a wonderful recipe for Palaman Palaka or Stuffed Frogs in the common vernacular that I've been dying to try out on company!

Canadian Values

Conservative MP Kellie Leitch drew wide-spread criticism from political circles, including her own party, when she suggested recently that potential Canadian immigrants should be screened for "anti-Canadian" values before being accepted.  However, as recently reported in The Record, about two-thirds of Canadians seem to share Ms. Leitch's views, according to an even more recent Forum Research poll.


This begs the question, exactly what are "anti-Canadian" values?  For that matter, what are Canadian values?  Who gets to decide?  The Halmanator, that's who!  Having lived in this country since the tender age of three and having grown up here, I think I have a pretty good handle on what it means to be Canadian.  Since such a majority of people appear to favour some sort of screening, and being a patriotic and civic-minded citizen, I have taken it upon myself to get the ball rolling, so to speak, and design the following questionnaire, intended to weed out those of an un-Canadian mindset.  For each of the following questions, respond with a number between 1 and 5, 1 meaning that you strongly disagree and 5 meaning that you strongly agree:

---

1. I enjoy watching hockey.
   
   
2. I enjoy watching the Toronto Maple Leafs lose at play hockey.
   
   
3. I pledge my undying fealty to Tim Horton Donuts, regardless of how mediocre and over-priced their food may be.
   
   
4. I buy my breakfast at Tim Horton's because I am incapable of toasting and buttering a bagel at home.
   
   
5. Curling is a riveting spectator sport.
   
   
6. I like to garnish my French fries with
   a) Hummus
   b) Ketchup
   c) Vinegar
   d) Gravy
   e) Gravy with cheese curds
   
   
7. I don't know whether to "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree" with the previous question, as it was more of a multiple choice.
   
   
8. I am sorry for pointing out that Question 6 doesn't fit the format of this questionnaire.
   
   
9. I seek affirmation at the end of every statement that I make, eh?
   
   
10. I am polite.  Always.  To everyone.  Even Americans.
    
    
11. The most important attribute for a national leader is good hair.
    (Note: This question also appeared in the anti-American values screening test ... until recently)
    
    
12. I own every album ever released by:
    a) Neil Young
    b) "Stompin' Tom" Connors
    c) Joni Mitchell
    d) Gordon Lightfoot
    e) All Of The Above
    
    
13. I do not own any records or CDs having left them behind in Syria after they were blown up, along with my house, but, should I be accepted into Canada,  I promise to acquire every album ever released by 12e (above) at the earliest possible opportunity.
    
    
14. I know the entire lyrics to "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" by heart.
    
    
15. "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" is an appropriate song to play as the father-daughter dance at weddings.
    
    
16. Logs are useful for:
    a) Making telephone poles
    b) Sitting on when there are no benches available
    c) Making fires
    d) Making paper
    e) Transportation along rivers
    
    
17. This questionnaire is flawed because it doesn't include both English and French text.
    Ce questionnaire est viciée parce qu'elle ne comprend pas l'anglais et le texte français.
    
    
18. The term "American beer" is an oxymoron.
    
    
19. A sixteen-hour wait is not unreasonable in a hospital emergency ward.
    
    
20. Plaid goes with everything.

Scoring: For every question, the number of points you get is the number with which you responded.  For the multiple choice questions, score 1 to 5 for answers a through e respectively.  Add up your points:

20 -   50: Take off you Daesh terrorist swine!  We don't like your kind, eh?  Just sayin'.
51 -   79: Have you considered immigrating to the U.S.?
80 - 100: Welcome aboard eh?  Have a cold one!

Joe Versus the Volcano

I don't normally do movie reviews on this blog.  I figure there are plenty of web sites that do those.  Up until now, I've only done one review, of sorts, of a Darren Aronofsky movie called The Fountain, and I only did that one because I was struck by its surrealism and inscrutability.  I found The Fountain in a bargain bin at my local grocery store.  I had never seen it, nor really even heard of it when I purchased it.  The cover just piqued my interest.


Unlike The Fountain, I did not get the movie Joe Versus the Volcano out of a bargain bin, although it might well be found in one of those.  No, I actively sought it out, having seen it on TV and having been completely won over by it.  Joe Versus the Volcano was released in 1990 and directed by John Patrick Shanley, of Moonstruck fame.  It stars Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, who plays three different roles, but it is probably not one of either actors' more memorable movies, as it did not do well at the box office when it was released.


Joe Versus the Volcano is a modern fable about a guy named Joe Banks (played by Tom Hanks).  Joe is an ex-firefighter who somehow wound up in a dead-end job managing the catalog department (a single room full of mostly empty shelves) for a medical supply company from Hell.  Like the buildings that he formerly helped to extinguish, the fire has gone out of Joe.  He hates his job and his life in general.  He is a hopeless hypochondriac who`s afraid of everyone and everything.  The emptiness of his life would make a vacant 747 hangar seem like a subway car at rush hour in comparison.  Early in the movie, the office secretary, DeDe (the first of Meg Ryan`s three personas) notices Joe examining his shoe and asks him what the problem is.  Joe responds, "I think I'm losing my sole".  The movie is full of double-entendre dialog of that sort.


One of the things that amuses me about this movie is that there is a lot of seemingly irrelevant stuff happening in the background which is often a subtle message or commentary on modern life if you're paying attention.  As an example, when Joe first enters the office in which he works, his boss is engaged in a phone conversation in the background.  Although the camera focuses on Joe and what he is doing (which involves pouring himself a particularly unappealing cup of coffee under a continuously buzzing fluorescent light), the boss's conversation is loud enough to be overhead, and goes like this:


"Harry..." (pause)
"Yeah Harry, but can he do the job?" (sigh)
"I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?" (pause)
"I'm not arguing that with you." (pause)
"I'm not arguing that with you." (pause)
"I'm not arguing that with you!" (pause)
"I'm not arguing that with you, Harry!" (pause)
"Harry... Harry..." (pause)
"Yeah, Harry, but can he do the job?  I know he can get the job.  But can he do the job?" (pause)
"I'm not arguing that with you." (pause)
"Harry, I am not arguing that with you!" (pause)
"Who said that?" (pause)
"I didn't say that!" (pause)
"If I said that, I would have been wrong." (pause)
"Maybe." (pause)
"Maybe.: (pause)
"I'm not arguing that with you!" (pause)
"Yeah Harry, I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?"


How many times, especially in working environments, do we hear circular conversations of this type?  One can't help but wonder what Joe's boss thinks that he's accomplishing.  To me, it's a wink at the sheer pointlessness that so many engage in and endure while doing what's supposed to be their life's work.


Later on, Joe visits his doctor (played by Robert Stack) to find the result of some medical tests that were run after Joe complained of feeling "blotchy" and the doctor informs him that he has a rare condition known as a "brain cloud"; a black fog of tissue that runs down the center of his brain.  It's spreading, it's incurable and it's terminal.  Joe has about six months of life left to him and can expect to experience no pain or, indeed, any other symptoms, until right at the end.  Cue another beautiful exchange of dialog:


Joe: What are you talking about, doctor, I don't feel good right now!


Dr. Ellison: That's the ironic part, Mr. Banks.  You're a hypochondriac.  There's nothing wrong that has anything to do with your symptoms...


Joe: I'm not sick except for this terminal disease?


Dr. Ellison: Which has no symptoms.  That's right.


Doc Ellison goes on to explain that it was only because of Joe's insistence on having so many tests done that he caught the problem at all.


Ironically, Joe finds his death sentence a liberating experience.  Having nothing left to lose, he finally gets up the courage to tell off his boss, quit his job and ask DeDe out for dinner.


Sometime later, Joe is sitting alone in his run-down little apartment strumming on a ukulele (hey, I couldn't think of a better way to live out my last six months) when there is a rap at the door.  The rapper turns out to be a cheery but eccentric old millionaire named Samuel Graynamore (played by Lloyd Bridges), who has a proposition for Joe.  He knows that Joe is dying and he needs someone who is willing to jump into the mouth of an active volcano in order to appease the volcano god and, more importantly, appease the natives who live near the volcano so that they will be amenable to supplying Mr. Graynamore with bubero, a rare mineral that's only found on their island and that his company needs for making superconductors.


So here's the deal.  If Joe, who is dying anyway, is willing leap into the mouth of the volcano in order to appease both the volcano god and the natives, Graynamore will arrange his passage to the exotic south sea island on which the volcano is located as well as supply him with enough money to live out his last days like a king before dying like a hero.  After a surprisingly brief consideration, Joe agrees to do it.


Thus begins the strangest (and likely last) adventure of Joe's life, during the course of which he will befriend a fatherly limousine driver, purchase four high-end steamer trunks that appear more luxurious than some trailers that I've seen from a luggage salesman who lives for his work, and meet Graynamore's two daughters (both played by Meg Ryan), Angelica and Patricia who, in spite of being semi-related (they're only half-sisters) couldn't be any more opposite.  The movie, of course, culminates on the island of Waponi Woo, home of the dreaded volcano into which Joe has promised to jump.


One of the things that I like about this movie is its penchant for understatement and subtlety.  There are all sorts of recurring themes and foreshadowing for the observant viewer.  Near the beginning of the movie, long before any talk of volcanoes, Joe kills the fluorescent lights over his desk and sets a small musical lamp in their place.  The lamp's stand is a native dancing girl, and the lamp's shade depicts what appears to be a volcano on an exotic island.

Later, after Joe and DeDe leave the restaurant where they had dinner, we see a nearby poster depicting another south sea island with a volcano with the words "Fire in Paradise".

One of the first things that we see when the movie starts is a grimy sign featuring the logo of the company for which Joe works.

It is, perhaps, not entirely surprising that the path leading from the front gate to the factory entrance looks like this (although I do find it amusing that everyone obediently follows it and nobody seems to think to just cut straight across the rocks).

It's somewhat more surprising that the crack in the right wall of Joe's seedy apartment happens to resemble the same design.



And then there's the lightning bolt that hits that yacht on which Joe is sailing to the island of Waponi Woo.

And, finally, there is the procession of torches, carried by the islanders, as they take Joe to the mouth of the volcano.

What do I read into this?  For me, the cracked pyramid/lightning bolt symbol represents the forces in Joe's life that try to drag him down.  It symbolizes his fear and insecurity and it's not easily left behind.  It keeps recurring everywhere, right up until the end, and Joe has to keep overcoming it.


For me, the climax, and the central message behind this movie, come during the scene when Joe is adrift in the south seas on the steamer trunks that he bought, which he has fashioned into a sort of raft after the yacht that was taking him to the island sank in the storm.  Sun-baked and dehydrated, he is awakened at night by surprisingly bright moonlight, thrown by an enormous full moon as it ascends over the horizon.  Joe staggers to his feet, blinks at the awesome orb, then falls back to his knees and whispers "Dear God, whose name I do not know, Thank you for my life.  I forgot ... how big..."  I don't mind admitting that scene chokes me up every time I see it.

Joe Versus the Volcano is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated movies in recent history.  Unlike so many formulaic movies nowadays, it is completely original.  Its comedic moments evoke laughs and chuckles, but it has enough depth to make the viewer re-examine his or her own life and priorities.  In short, it is Halmanator Approved, and I can't think of a better testimonial than that.

The Tax Man's Salami

Recently, I picked up a few grocery items at my local supermarket.  Now that I have your rapt attention thanks to that riveting opening, I'll proceed to explain that most grocery products aren't taxable in the province of Ontario, where I live, the significance of which will become clear momentarily.

At the checkout, I asked for a plastic bag, as there was too much stuff to carry free-hand.  In Ontario, most grocery stores; in fact, most stores of any kind (though not all) add a small charge for plastic bags.  They pass this off as a "green" initiative, intended to save the environment by encouraging customers to bring along their own re-usable bags rather than accumulating disposable plastic bags which only wind up in landfills, as opposed to calling it an additional cash grab, which is what it is in actuality.  This post, however, is not a rant against stores that charge for plastic bags.  There's been a sufficient number of other writers who have ranted about this practice at least as eloquently as I could hope to.

Looking over my grocery receipt later, I saw the charges for the various grocery items, a five cent charge for the plastic bag, and a one cent charge for H.S.T.; Ontario's harmonized sales tax.  Recall that most grocery items aren't taxable in Ontario, so the item that was being taxed was the five-cent plastic bag.  But there's a problem with this.  You see, Ontario's H.S.T. rate is thirteen percent (which includes 5% G.S.T. plus 8% P.S.T.).  Thirteen percent of a nickel is .0065 cents.  So the tax amount was rounded up to a penny.


"But of course," you may be thinking, "that seems reasonable since, in North America, a  penny is the smallest possible monetary unit.  Unlike Olde England, we don't have halfpennies.  In fact, technically, we don't even have pennies anymore!  So the amount has to be rounded up.  Still, one cent added to a five-cent charge amounts, in fact, to a 20% tax, not a 13% tax.  I had been over-taxed by 7%.


"Come off it," I hear you chide, "it's only a penny man!"  Maybe so, but how many other people conduct similar transactions during the course of a day, a week, a month and a year?  How much extra money are the Ontario and Canadian governments raking in thanks to this kind of over-taxation?


Many of my readers will have heard the story of a rogue Programmer who apparently worked for a bank, and altered the program which posted bank transactions to divert any rounding differences to his personal bank account.  The story goes that, after initially accumulating a healthy sum, he was eventually found out and jailed for fraud.  While the story itself has become something of an urban legend, given that the specific Programmer and bank in question are either not named or, if they are, there is disagreement about their identities, the common consensus is that the story probably does have some basis in fact.  Even if it doesn't, most authorities agree that this type of activity would definitely be fraudulent and illegal if it did occur.  The practice has even been given a name; "salami slicing".


But if taking the fractions of cents that result from rounding, which don't actually belong to anyone and which no-one is going to miss, is fraudulent, how then can the government justify rounding up a fractional tax amount to a full cent and keeping the difference?  Isn't that the same thing?


As is often the case, it appears that different rules apply to government as opposed to the citizenry.  Ironically, salami, being a grocery item, is not taxable, at least not in Ontario.

Making Gravitational Waves

In the news, an international team of astrophysicists recently managed to detect gravitational waves created by the collision of two black holes.  This has caused quite a lot of excitement within the astrophysicist community, because it confirms something that Albert Einstein first theorized back in 1916.

In my opinion, scientists do tend to get overly worked up about these sorts of things.  You'd think, from the way they carried on about the news, that they'd found a cure for cancer or a cheap, infinitely renewable energy source or an unlimited food supply with which to feed the world or something.  I mean, okay, gravitational waves do sound kind of cool but, really, what do they mean to the average person?

To demonstrate the enormity of their discovery, the scientists converted the gravitational wave that they detected into sound, and played it for the public.  The sound that resulted was a barely-audible "chirp".  Marc Kamionkowski, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University, gushed "It's one thing to know sound waves exist, but it's another to actually hear Beethoven's Fifth Symphony."  Excuse me?  Beethoven's Fifth?  This was a CHIRP man!  Not a symphony, a CHIRP!  A barely-audible chirp at that, even after being enhanced!  Get a grip there, Sheldon!

The gravitational waves were apparently detected by a pair of ultra-sensitive 1,1 billion-dollar observation facilities known as Laser Inteferometer Gravitational-wave Observatories (or LIGO for short).  Now there's a Buck Rogers type gadget name for you!  I can almost hear Ming the Merciless shouting "Activate the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory!  MWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!"

And, call me a cynic, but I couldn`t help at least briefly pondering the possibility that maybe the scientists just made the whole thing up to justify the funding of their 1.1 billion-dollar LIGO set.  I mean, let`s face it, if they came back completely empty-handed after being handed over a billion dollars, their funding sources might just, you know, re-think giving them another billion and use the money for something productive instead.  So I could see where there might be a strong temptation to record a chirp, using perfectly ordinary sound recording equipment, and then tell the public that it had been picked up by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, not that I`m actually accusing anybody of doing such a thing, of course.

So, let`s grant that that the LIGO did actually record a gravitational wave and that Einstein has been proven right exactly a hundred years after predicting that they existed.  Cool.  Good for him.  But, um.... really, so what?

Hey, Hey, 16K

Computers have become an integral part of our society.  We communicate with them, keep up on the news with them, find the answers to questions of all kinds with them, view pornography with them and exchange ridiculous quantities of cute cat pictures with them. We use them in our work and in our recreational activities.  They've created a whole new class of time vampire called social media.  I'll bet there are a lot of people who, if they had to go without facebook, twitter or any other form of social media for even just one week, would be at a loss for what to do with themselves and might even begin to experience withdrawal symptoms, not unlike those of my loyal readers who have been checking blogger.com for a new Halmanator post since last August.

Today, most everybody uses some form of computer on a regular basis; if not an actual laptop or notebook computer, then a tablet or a smart phone.  In fact, it seems to me that desktop computers are on the wane, as opposed to being on the desktop where they belong.  You hardly see them anymore outside of office environments.  Rather, they tend to be inside the office environment, where they do belong.

I personally am still sitting at a desktop computer as I bang out this blog post.  I still prefer desktop computers to laptop or notebook computers or tablets for two basic reasons; for one, I like to play games on my PC (as opposed to using a game console, which I do not own) and, when I play games, I want a full-sized screen and speakers to help immerse me in the experience in a way that a notebook computer or tablet simply cannot do.  The other reason why I prefer desktop computers is because, being a basically introverted personality type, it gives me an excuse to shut myself away from everyone for a while, up in my attic den,  That's where I keep my desktop computer, so that's where I must go when I need to use it for anything.

Getting back to my original point, though, computers today are commonplace and are used by pretty much everybody.  Even my technologically-challenged sister-in-law, who once changed her mind about enrolling in a college program because registration had to be done on-line, (in hindsight, probably just as well) now has a smartphone.  It was not always thus (meaning almost everyone using computers, not my sister-in-law owning a smartphone, although that was not always thus either).  I recall (fondly sometimes, I must admit) the late seventies and early eighties, when the first personal computers, like the Commodore VIC 20 and 64, the Radio Shack Color Computer, the Atari ST or the early Apple and IBM PCs were strictly the domain of geek hobbyists, like myself.

Back in those days, only real geeks used computers!  The personal computer industry saw to that.  To begin with, there were no namby-pamby point-and-click, GUI interfaces!  No-sirree!  Back then, if you wanted to use a computer, you had to type arcane commands like:

DIR C: /S|MORE (meaning "please give me the directions for making s'mores") or...

LOAD "$",8 (load eight dollars into my bank account).

Back then, if you did not know the correct commands to get the computer to do what you wanted, all that you typically got out of the machine was the dreaded SYNTAX ERROR message which was almost always unhelpful except for those rare occasions on which a syntax error was exactly what you were looking for.

Because most people were too busy having actual lives and interacting with members of the opposite sex to bother learning the arcane commands necessary for using a personal computer, those of us who did learn them felt the smug sense of superiority that comes with belonging to an elite secret society, much like the Freemasons only with a dorkier secret handshake.

Of course, even back then, those of us who used computers tended to spend a lot of time playing games on them, and this is another thing that set us apart.  You really needed a strong interest in gaming, of the sort that defies all logical explanation, to enjoy computer gaming back then.  Today's games are multimedia smorgasbords with Hollywood style production values.  I can easily understand why a game like the one below would appeal to a wide audience.

It's a little bit harder, though, for most people to understand what kept us early gamers playing games like the one below for any amount of time.  I should note that the narrator is definitely "one of us" - I can just tell, even without his giving me the dorky secret handshake.

And yet, countless nerds like me spent countless hours tanning their pale complexions by the light of the CRT, late into the night, playing this game for hour upon hour, usually unsuccessfully as it was actually a surprisingly hard game to win at!

Incidentally, the comments following the above video on YouTube included this one:

"I LOVED this game!  I used Norton Tools to hack it and change attributes.  Give myself unlimited armor, strength etc...   I tried to download it for my MAC but it said unsupported CPU :(  I want to play this again!!"

Yup. He's "one of us" too!

I'm most gratified to learn that I am not alone in looking back on those pioneering days of personal computing with a fond sense of nostalgia, as the video below, which celebrates those halcyon days of nerd-dom, aptly illustrates.