Sculpin

From the category of “is this hypnotic or is that my fever?”: nine and a half minutes of dreamy skateboarding in Madrid at the magic hour. Via Doobybrain.

MADRID LONGBOARD from Juan Rayos on Vimeo.

Trundle trundle trundle:

Om nom nom:

“My dear Burge, life is a disease; and the only difference between one man and another is the stage of the disease at which he lives. You are always at the crisis; I am always in the convalescent stage. I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worth while.”
– George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

This morning I’m able to whisper a little. “I’m doing great!” I thought, and then I realized that I was having yet another Hyperbole And A Half moment. I have a lot of those. Like this, which is just about exactly how I looked when I had both the Norwalk virus and an untreated disc herniation. Or this. Or this.

You know, if I were sure it was responsible, I might think this bug has been worth it for the vivid dreams I’ve been having lately. Last night I visited Jessica C. in her magnificent underground mad-science lair complete with two dozen artificially intelligent origami crabs and a player piano that played “Rockin’ Pneumonia” a la Professor Longhair. Good job, subconscious.

Elsewhere, Jasper Patterson mentioned grammelot, which is today’s coolest thing I’d never heard of before. (It beats out “hot potato voice” by a mile.) If I could talk at all, you can bet I’d be practicing my gibberish-babbling right now. Here’s the astonishing Dario Fo:

I don’t know Italian or much of anything about Berlusconi, and I’m still floored. (He probably wouldn’t be surprised by that. In his Nobel speech, he said, “English-speakers will have a tremendous advantage over the rest because they will imagine things I’ve neither said nor thought.” Er. Well. Yes, I expect so.)

Jasper pointed out that “Prisencolinensinainciusol” can be seen as a modern example of grammelot. I’d buy that. I wonder if the Swedish Chef might be arguably a grammelotarian as well. And then there’s De Düva:

What else?

For months on end I misheard that lyric in “Thank U” as “Thank you science,” which did seem appropriate for somebody who’d been on antibiotics. “About time somebody thanked science like that,” I thought. Oh well.

If you follow me on Facebook, you know that I’ve been having a colossally sore throat for about a week. It’s sore enough that I haven’t talked for a couple of days. Compared to this, mono was a walk in the park. It’s even been waking me up because it hurts to breathe. The usual home remedies are nearly powerless against it. I keep looking for signs of strep, but it keeps on looking viral. (Low fever, some conjunctivitis – basically I feel like I’ve been stuck head-down into a vat of toxic dust.)

At least it’s given me the opportunity to learn that “hot potato voice” is a medical term of art. No kidding.

If I gave this bug to you, I am very, very sorry. If you’ve seen me in the last ten days or so, please stay hydrated and eat your vegetables or do whatever it is you do to fend off a virus. But if that doesn’t work, you might be interested in this handy review article from 2000: How effective are treatments other than antibiotics for acute sore throat?

I react well to aspirin generally, so I’ve started using the aspirin+caffeine treatment, and while I’m still not about to try anything crazy like talking, I do feel a lot better. Thank you, science.

So, last year I spent a good while stuck in bed with a whoppingly herniated disc. That was damn painful — I’d say I averaged 8+ on the pain scale while lying still in the least exacerbating position. That was enough to give me a good case of the stupids. (You know your pain is legit when you’re more clear-headed on opiates than off.) Pretty much all I was able to think about for a while was the pain, and after a while the pain became interesting in its own right in almost an aesthetic way — all its little textures and fluctuations. I noticed a few things.

My skeptic friends like to scoff at the power of prayer, and I’m right there with them with one exception: pain. Pain is weird. I’m willing to believe that, for many people, believing that friendly people are praying for one’s pain relief would reduce pain, just from the enhanced feeling of community and love.

My own experience was that all the support I got from friends actually reduced my pain by a solid 0.5 out of 10. That counts for a lot up in those upper pain registers. I would read words of support on Facebook, or read a book or watch a video that someone had brought for me, etc., and I would literally feel better. Not enough that I’d get up and dance, but enough that I might manage to turn over without steeling myself for five minutes first. It was the damnedest thing.

This may not be entirely surprising, at least if you follow what’s been going on in pain overlap theory. There’s been a fair bit of research in the last few years into what looks like a shared neurological basis of social and physical pain, and it’s been shown in a number of situations that social support can ameliorate physical pain.

There’s all sorts of interesting stuff going on in our pain systems, as it happens; lately it’s come out that taking a dose of Tylenol seems to help people keep from acutely feeling the pain of social rejection. It makes me wonder about all those low-dose daily aspirins that some people take for their cardiovascular health. Could those be enough to protect against some emotional stress as well as inflammation?

Something else helped: kitten videos on youtube. I swear to you, fluffy kittens at play are nature’s own minor narcotic. The Kitten Effect works even when they’re just falling asleep.

At my gig the other day, one of the students showed me how to make a stick bomb out of tongue depressors. How I ever missed that one as a kid, I don’t know, but I’m grateful to have that hole in my education filled. Here’s a very large array of stick bombs from xyloexplosivist Tim Fort:

Which is more fabulous? The orderliness of the progression or the chaos it creates? I like the orderliness, but I can feel the power of the kerplowie factor.

There’s this hippie high-fiber cereal that used to be called “Optimum Zen”. I both bought the stuff occasionally (I’ll try nearly anything with ginger in it) and rolled my eyes at the name for being such a dharma-burger. But now that they’ve changed it to something blander, I kind of miss the old name. At least, I miss making cracks about how all that fiber leads to the direct experience of emptiness.

We’re going to build a rack for the bikes pretty soon here, so it will be good for them to stop by and eat.

That’s Montida L. of Thai Fusion, who was briefly interviewed by Q13 as part of a story about the upcoming Nickerson Street road diet. I’ve gotten all too used to stories about road diets that feature angry business owners pitching fits. So Montida’s statement struck me as refreshing, so much so that I wrote to thank Thai Fusion for being so friendly to bicyclists, saying that I’d be sure to try their place soon. The other owner, Ranee, wrote back to say, “Please do stop by,” and to let me know that it’d be fine to lock the bike to the patio railing if I get there before the bike racks do.

It’s just all so civilized. It’s a breath of fresh air. And check out the site — they’re allergy-aware (a whole gluten-free menu, neat) and they have a Thai coconut cheesecake and a street-food menu… And, ooh, they do a meing khum. I love meing khum. Right then. Definitely on the list of places I want to try. It’ll be a good tandem trip when I get my busted lumbar nerves more in order, but I’m not sure I want to wait that long.

So. Out there in the atheist blogosphere is this loopy scandal of sockpuppets and lies and misogynistic fixation and secret identities and provocative accusations and the kind of ugly pseudo-journalism that Bob Novak would have produced if he’d been a concern troll. (Oh, Chris Mooney. I remember when you weren’t so obviously full of crap. Those were good days.) At this point I’d need a wiki to keep all of it straight, but Zachary Voch does as good a job at untangling it as anybody.

So there’s a lot of anger flying around out there, especially between New Atheists and the Nice Police. One commenter on Butterflies and Wheels really– well, we all have days when we get an idea and run it into the ground, eh? He’s been advised to brew some chai and take a breather. It’s pretty good advice. I can think of some times when I wish I’d gotten and taken some advice like that.

As usual, as soon as food is mentioned, my attention is thoroughly diverted. One good thing I’ll say for all that mess is that it’s gotten me to revisit my old chai recipe, which I hadn’t thought to make in years. I do like it quite strong, so I think I’ll start calling it:

Predictably Vicious New Atheist Chai
(Hat tip to the spittle-flecked ravings of Jeremy Stangroom for inspiring the title. All ingredients are subject to rational argument. Though if you want to leave out the water, I’ll look at you funny.)

1 cinnamon stick, broken
4 cardamom pods, smushed
4 whole cloves
2 peppercorns
a 3/4″ chunk of ginger, sliced and the cut surfaces scored
2 cups water
milk and sugar to taste
black tea (optional)

Bring the spices to a simmer in the water, then let sit to infuse, covered, for a good eight to ten minutes. For a caffeinated variant, bring the mixture back up to a simmer after about five minutes, add some unperfumed black tea, then immediately turn off the heat again and let it sit for three minutes. Strain and serve with plenty of milk.